Beneath the Grim Moon
by D.L. Pseudonym
Summary: Nyssa is not interested in going south, over the Wall, but fate has other plans for her. Robb Stark is not interested in having a wildling in Winterfell, but his mother insists. While neither of them gets what they want, they may find in each other exactly what they need.
1. Chapter 1

**"A true man does what he will, not what he must."**

Storm clouds rolled in. She held up her hands, to catch the first falling flakes, but instead a drop of blood landed in the middle of her palm. In the distance, a wolf howled. Blood fell thicker and thicker, scorching the ground where it struck, but causing her no pain. The wolf called to her. She had to find it...

* * *

Nyssa woke on her stomach, with her face pressed against her sister's shoulder. Her mouth was dry as a bone. She untangled her legs from Illa's and crawled out from under the pelts. Illa rolled into the warm spot left behind.

"Where're you going?" she asked, her eyes only half open. The sun had yet to rise, but it would soon enough.

"Go back to sleep," Nyssa whispered, bending down to kiss the girl's forehead. "I'll be back before dark."Then, she ducked out of the tent. Outside, camp was quiet, except for the snores of the men. Nyssa navigated between the disorderly row of tents. At the edge of camp, she stopped when she spotted a pacing figure just up ahead. She'd hoped to go unnoticed this morning, but the look-out was already striding towards her.

"Nys, is that you?" they called out. It was only Alger. He lifted his torch for a better look at her. "What are you doing?"

"Nothing that concerns you," she said.

"Off to find Mance Rayder," he teased. "You should've told me."

"Hush. You'll wake someone."She tried to duck around him, but he would not let her pass. They'd known one another since birth. There'd been a time when she could've knocked him flat on his backside. They weren't children anymore, though, and Alger was now the tallest man in the tribe. He was twice her width as well.

"Let me pass," she snapped.

"Tell me where you're sneaking off to and maybe I will."

"I just need to be alone for awhile," she said. "I need to think."

"You can't do that here?"

"Not with Illa around."

The sky was gradually changing from pitch black to pale gray. Nyssa was eager to be on her way. "Please," she said. "Just pretend you never saw me."

"Be careful," he said, stepping aside. "There've been sightings of the Frozenriver people not far from camp."

"I can take care of myself," Nyssa said.

She pulled her hood over her ears and looked ahead to the empty stretch of frozen ground. Frost crunched under her boots. As the sky turned pink and the sun began to rise over the snowy plains, she thought once more of her dream. Gritting her teeth together, Nyssa pressed on. She had a long way to go.

* * *

By noon, the snow had thawed enough that she could scoop up handfuls as she walked. Nyssa had decided not to eat nor drink on her journey, in the hopes that her sacrifice would make the gods more willing to come to her. The handfuls of snow did not ease her thirst, but they did soothe the burning in her throat. The farther from camp she went, the harsher the air became. Flat plains turned into ever steeper slopes. She did not pause to rest.

For one whole turn of the moon, Nyssa had been plagued by dreams of a wolf howling in the distance. She knew not what the dreams meant and she had not told anyone else about them. Illa would only worry. Alger would accuse her of over-reacting. As she trudged through a snow drift that came up to her knees, she thought perhaps she was over-reacting. Greta, the old mage, might once have been able to tell her what the dreams meant, but the woman had been losing her mind for years now.

So, Nyssa had set out on her own, determined to find answers. She knew better than to take such dreams lightly. Her mother had the sight, she knew, but after seventeen years without a single vision, Nyssa had long assumed that she hadn't inheirted their mother's gift. Yet her dreams of the past month had begun to make her doubt all previous certainties.

As she walked, she kept her eyes on the Frostfangs. She'd been born in their shadow and she would die in their shadow. If the gods existed anywhere in the world, it was in those icy mountains. The ground became steeper and steeper, until she had to climb on her hands and knees. After hours of walking, then climbing, Nyssa could go no further. She rolled onto her back at an outcropping of rock. Everything was white: her breath, the sky, the mist hanging over the peaks.

She closed her eyes and wondered how worried Illa would be by now. Since their father had been slain by a Frozenriver cannibal five years ago, the two sisters only had each other. Orphaned as she was, Nyssa had always gone wherever she'd pleased, with no one to tell her she couldn't. Sometimes Alger journeyed to the Frostfangs with her, but more often she went alone.

Nyssa sat up. Suddenly, she no longer felt she was here alone. Sure enough, when she opened her eyes, there was a child standing before her. But no, not a child...The creature's eyes were gold and slanted. Unnatural. Its skin was pale brown and decorated by an intricate design of forest green markings.

_A Child of the Forest_, Nyssa thought, hardly daring to believe her eyes. She'd heard tales about them, but no one she knew had seen one. Greta claimed they spoke to her, but everyone knew the old mage's words were no longer to be trusted.

Nyssa didn't know the proper greeting. _Do I bow?_ Before she'd decided, the Child spoke, with a voice like wind.

"You've come for answers," it said.

"Yes," Nyssa said, rising to her knees. "I've been having these dreams."

"We know." The Child shimmered. "You dream about the direwolf."

"Why?"

"Can't you feel the land is shifting?" The Child smiled. There was no warmth in it. Unnatural. Dark clouds rolled over them. A sudden winter storm. Nyssa knew she must leave soon.

"Old magic is stirring," the Child said.

"But what about my dreams?"

"You must find the direwolf." Mist was enveloping the Child. "Go south."

Then, it was gone, as if it had never existed. Nyssa stared at the empty mist, wondering if she'd gone mad, like Greta. More confused than when she'd set out that morning, she began her descent to the plains. It began to snow as she neared the bottom of the Fangs. She held up her hand to catch a flake. It melted in her palm.

* * *

It was very late by the time Nyssa returned. When she stepped into their tent, Illa was waiting to drape a pelt over her shoulders, and then punched her arm.

"Where've you been?" she demanded.

"I didn't meant to be gone so long," Nyssa said. She crawled onto their pallet. "There was a storm." Her body ached. She wanted to sleep without dreams. Illa, hands on her hips, remained by the tent flap.

"Did you find what you were looking for?" she asked.

"What?" Nyssa muttered, her eyelids closing.

"Alger said you went to think. About your nightmares, right?"

Nyssa sat up. She was wide awake now.

"Yeah, I know," Illa said, rolling her eyes. "You thrash all night. I've got the bruises to prove it."

"Sorry," Nyssa said. Illa's arms dropped to her sides. She joined her sister on the pallet.

"Are you like mother?"she asked.

"I don't know. Probably not." She decided not to say anything about the Child. If she did, she'd have to accept that her encounter had been real. _Find the direwolf. Go south. _She didn't want to go south. _I will die in the shadow of the Frostfangs_, she thought.

"The gods didn't come to me," she continued. "I suppose they're only nightmares."

"If they weren't, though, you'd tell me?"

"O'course I would."

Satisfied by the promise, Illa wriggled under the pelts, drawing them over her face. Nyssa blew out the seal-fat lantern strung up over the bed. Long after Illa fell asleep, with her arms strewn across her sister's chest, Nyssa stared up at the darkness. _Find the direwolf. Go south. _She wrapped her arms around Illa. _No, I won't go, _she thought. _I belong here._


	2. Chapter 2

**"You should have learned by now, none of us get the things we want."**

The song of steel against stone filled the night. Nyssa, sharpening her blade by the fire, held the walrus-bone hilt of her knife as if it were an extension of her own arm. As her father had taught her many years ago, when he'd given her the knife. She ran her fingers over the notches in the bone. There was one for every man her father had killed.

"I think it's sharp enough," Alger said, from where he stood over the fire, turning a horse leg on the spit. The meat popped and crackled.

"Don't be an idiot. There's no such thing as sharp enough." Still, she set down her knife and whetting stone. Beside her, Illa picked through the painted beads in her lap. They were made of walrus bone, like the knife hilt and the clan's sleds. She picked up a blue bead and held it up to the firelight, and then braided it into her long, red hair. The men took more note of Illa, kissed by fire as she was, every year, but they rarely dared to make any moves on the young girl, for fear of Nyssa. A few bold soul's had already lost a finger a two for trying.

"We should go fishing tomorrow," Illa said, looping another bead into her hair.

"That's not such a bad idea," Alger said, as he slid the horse leg from the spit and began cutting it into strips. Nyssa shrugged her consent. They could use more fish. The bay would be frozen three feet thick before too long. Winter was coming.

As the three of them ate, heated voices from Bone Dust's nearby tent carried over to them. Nyssa, chewing on a tough piece of fat, strained her ears. She couldn't make out a single voice among the throng. For many nights now there had been such gatherings in Bone Dust's tent. She suspected they were discussing Mance Rayder. It was no secret that Bone Dust wished for them all to join with the self-proclaimed king. Half of the clan agreed with him. The other half said it would be death for them all should they go.

As for Nyssa, she cared little one way or the other. Let Bone Dust and his cronies join the King-Beyond-the-Wall. She had enough concerns, what with the Frozenriver people growing bolder each year and tramping further into their territory.

"Do you think they'll go?" Alger asked, having noticed where her attention lay. Nyssa faced him.

"Yes," she said. "The question is, will you go with them?"

"Father's against it. He doesn't trust Rayder. Says were Free Folk and Free Folk don't have kings. Look where that's gotten us, though?" He swiped at the snow. "A frozen wasteland with half our people starving."

"It's not all that bad," Illa said. "We've enough."

"We have ice."

"And our freedom," Nyssa added, grinning.

"Then you won't fight with Mance?" Alger asked, remaining serious. She didn't answer. Instead, she stood.

"Where're you going?" Illa asked.

"To take a piss," she said, ruffling her sister's hair as she walked past. The clan was rowdy tonight. All this talk of war had brought peoples' blood to a boil. Nyssa found a private spot just outside of the tent village. Steam rose from where her urine struck the snow. She did the deed quickly, rose from her crouch, and was relacing her britches when she heard footsteps from behind. She spun around, with her knife raised at the ready.

"Easy girl," Bone Dust said. She lowered the knife, but not her guard. There were few people she trusted, even within her clan, and he certainly was not one of them. His skin shone as white as his namesake.

"Drink?" he asked, offering her a skein of fermented milk, which she could smell five feet away.

"Another night," she said. "How go your meetings?"

"You'd know if you ever came." Bone Dust took a swig of the fermented milk. "Your father would have. He was a strong warrior. We could use him now."

"Too bad he's dead," she said. Then she spat at the ground between them. Bone Dust ignored the slight.

"You and Illa should join us," he said.

"And what would Illa do at war? She has no stomach for blood and I will not leave her behind."

"Don't you want a better life for her?" he asked, taking a step closer. "Think of what we could have over the Wall. That land, it belongs to us."

"When I was young, my mother told me that the land belonged to no one, except to itself and the gods," Nyssa said. "I'm not interested in your war." Then, she pushed past him. Making her way back to Alger and Illa, though, she remembered what the Child had told her nearly three weeks ago. _The land is shifting. _Prophecies and wars be damned. She wanted no part in it.

* * *

The Bay of Ice stretched farther than they could see. Glaciers sparkled in the distance. Soon, the few traders who came from over the Wall to do business with the Free Folk would stop coming, as the bay would freeze over when winter came. Nyssa stood on the shore, with her fishing pole over her shoulders. It was a fine day. One of the last she expected to see. She remembered little about the last winter, having only been a child, but this land was already cruel enough. She dreaded how much worse it would be once winter had them in its icy fist.

She watched Illa glide over the frozen surface of the bay. The young girl slid about ten feet out from shore, before lifting her axe and carving a hole in the ice. Then she sat with her legs crossed and lowered a hook into the water. Within seconds, she was reeling it back up. A fish flopped out onto the ice. Tenderly, she removed the hook from the fish's lip, while she stroked its silver scales. No one could catch fish the way she could. She sang to them and they swam to her. Nyssa had tried many times to do the same, but, as Alger often reminded her, she did not have a voice near as sweet as her sister's.

"So, I heard Bone Dust tried to recruit you," Alger said. He was sitting at her feet and eating winterberries from a pouch in his lap.

"You hear too much," she said, reaching down to pluck a berry from his hand just before he popped it into his mouth. She broke the skin with her teeth. Bittersweet juice coated her tongue. "It's no surprise with ears as big as yours," she added.

"You refused him," Alger said.

"We've better chance of surviving a winter than a war," she said, stealing another berry.

"I'm going," he declared. Nyssa wasn't surprised. Mance Rayder was all he'd talked about for months.

"When?" she asked, staring out at the bay.

"Soon."

"And what about us?"

"You don't need me," he said.

"Illa does."

"She has you." His expression softened when his eyes lit on Illa, out on the ice.

"She loves you too, you know," Nyssa said.

"How did you-?"

"Everyone knows. Except maybe for her."

Illa brought another fish onto the ice. She turned back to him, holding up her prize and beaming with pride. Nyssa took a third berry and rolled it between her fingers.

"Are you going to tell her you're leaving or will you make me do it?" she asked.

"I'll do it," Alger sighed. Silence fell over them. Though she understood why he had to go, she wished that he wouldn't. Since he'd learned to talk, Alger had boasted of the day he'd climb the Wall and return to the land of their ancestors, a place of warmth and plenty. Nyssa bent over and put her hand on his arm.

"Brother," she said. He understood that she was giving him her blessing to go. Alger was her brother. Born only a week after her, she couldn't remember having spent a single day without him.

"Sister," he said, putting his hand over hers. After a moment, though, Nyssa withdrew. She smiled down at him.

"Enough serious talk," she said. "If we've only a few days left together, we shouldn't waste them. We _should_ be preparing you for war. You look a bit soft." She nudged him in the ribs with the toe of her boot, then she turned and ran. "Race you to Illa," she cried over her shoulder.

Flying across the Bay of Ice, she felt like a child. She heard Alger laughing behind her and all thoughts of wars, winters, and wolves fled her mind.

Until an arrow whistled past her ear and Alger shouted, "Get down!"

Still running, Nyssa hit the ice. She was propelled across the slick surface on her belly, with no control over her direction. She tried to slow herself by clawing at the ice, but all she could do was wait until her body came to a stop on its own, which only took seconds, but felt like hours.

She scrambled to her feet and looked back to shore. A dozen or so men and women, all of them armed, charged towards them. They'd already overtaken Alger, three of them having broken off from the main horde and surrounded him. Nyssa didn't even have time to call out to him. Already, the others were upon her.

She ducked to the left to avoid the swing of an axe. The blade sliced the air above her head. Nyssa fell to her knees and plunged her knife into the axe-man's belly. Blood splattered her cheek. She rolled over, leaving the knife buried to the hilt in the man's gut, and he crashed to the ice.

"GO!" she screamed, hoping Illa could hear her, as she scooped up the fallen man's axe and faced the woman and man now circling her and their dead comrade. They charged at the same time. Nyssa swung the axe over her head and brought it down into the woman's skull. Then, she swung again, but the man dodged her blow and caught her across the back with his curved blade. Nyssa felt nothing. She spun around and flung the axe. It sunk into the man's chest and he toppled backwards.

Quickly, she scanned the bay for any sign of Illa. She didn't see the woman until it was too late. Cold hands curled around her neck. Her face slammed against the ice. Blood filled her mouth. Dark spots errupted across her vision. The woman's fingers curled into Nyssa's hair and beat her head against the ice once, twice...The weight lifted. Someone tugged at her arm.

"Sister," Illa said. "Sister, look at me."

Nyssa did as she was told. Beside her, another Frozenriver woman lay dead. Her throat slit ear to ear.

"I told you to go," Nyssa grumbled, as Illa helped her stand.

"Without you? Never." Illa pressed their father's bone-hilt knife into Nyssa's hands, but as she did so, her eyes suddenly widened in pain and she stumbled forward, falling into her sister and dragging them back down to the ice.

"Illa!" Nyssa cried. She saw the arrow shaft protruding from the girl's back. Blood bubbled at the corners of Illa's open mouth.

"No, no," she muttered, pressing her hands around the arrow shaft to staunch the flow of blood. Soon, her hands were stained crimson. The Frozenriver people were closing in around them. "We have to go," Nyssa pleaded, trying to lift Illa. "Get up. You must get up!"

But Illa was dead weight. Her eyes were as clear and blue as the sky above. A cold, bitter wind swept over them and Nyssa thought she heard a voice say, _kill them, kill them all. _She stood, eager to obey. Stepping in front of her sister's body, she raised her knife.

The last of the Frozenriver men cracked the ice when he fell, but did not break it. Nyssa stood amidst the bodies and looked over them with eyes not her own. She could not remember her own name. She yanked her knife from the man's back and wiped it clean on her leggings. There'd been at least a dozen of them, but she only counted eight bodies.

_Warn the others, _the wind demanded. _Nyssa, go. _She did not obey right away. Instead, she returned to where she'd left Illa. Any moment now, she expected blood to rain down from the sky. Kneeling by her sister's body, she did not cry. She rolled Illa onto her back and yanked out the arrow. Then, she unclasped her cloak and draped it over the girl

"I'll be back," she whispered into Illa's ear, before pulling the cloak over her face.

There was no sign of Alger. Either he'd escaped or...She could not think of that now. She had to return to camp, to warn the others. Refusing to look back at the bay, she ran as if there were an army at her heels. She slowed when she spotted smoke in the distance. Silence greeted her when she entered the camp. Tents blazed like bonfires, but she saw no bodies. _They got out, _she thought. _Alger beat me here. He got them out._ She hurried past her own scorched tent. There was nothing left for her in there. All she and Illa owned was a charred ruin.

She continued wandering until she came to the place where Bone Dust's tent had stood that morning. In its place there was now a pile of dead bodies. More of them than she'd ever seen. The stench of burnt flesh and cold rot forced her to her knees. Nyssa heaved into the snow.

All was gone. All went black.


	3. Chapter 3

**"Any gods so monstrous as to drown my mother and father would never have my worship, I vowed."**

The Frostfangs loomed over her, but they were not the mountains she knew. There were faces in the rock and the rock bled. She watched the mountains collapse into a river of blood, which flowed towards her. She could not run. Somewhere, a wolf howled, and then she was swept away.

* * *

Nyssa woke in agony. She heard the sound of dripping water, opened her eyes, and realized she was no longer in the camp. The only light came from a small fire, which cast a bloody red light onto the damp, stone walls of a cave. Though it was freezing, her skin felt on fire. Her face was slick with sweat and the taste of some pungent herb lingered on her tongue. Someone had taken off her shirt and wrapped her chest in clean, white bandages. She yelped when she tried to stretch her legs. The pain was such that she'd never felt before. When she moved it was as if the skin across her back were splitting apart.

Someone must have brought her here and bandaged her wounds. _But are they friend or foe? _ She loosened the bandage around her thigh and fingered the black, crooked stitches beneath.

"Don't touch that," a woman said. Greta, the old mage, appeared out of the shadows. Nyssa let loose a sigh of relief at the sight of a familiar face, but confusion quickly swept in.

"How did we get here?" she asked, eyeing the old woman skeptically. She certainly didn't look strong enough to have carried Nyssa to this place, whatever this place was.

"I'm old," Greta said. "With even older secrets. Now hush."

Nyssa was too tired to protest. Silently, she watched Greta grind a crumpled handful of yellow flowers into a fine powder between two smooth stones. The old mage scooped the powder into her wizened palms and held it over the low fire. She muttered words in a strange tongue and the flames turned shock white, only for a moment.

"Eat," Greta said. The flower-paste had hardened over the white fire into a brittle cracker. Nyssa plucked it from the mage's hand and gave it a sniff.

"Go on," Greta said. "It'll give you the strength you need."

Still, Nyssa did not eat. "Need for what?" she asked, thinking of Illa, dead on the ice, and the mountain of burnt bodies at camp.

"Eat," Greta repeated. Reluctantly, she bit into the hardened paste. The taste was horrid, but the more she ate, the less her wounds pained her.

"They're all dead," she muttered, once she'd finished.

"Not all," Greta said. "Some escaped. Bone Dust will lead them to the king-beyond-the-wall."

The news brought Nyssa little comfort. Bone Dust had survived. _My sister did not._ At last, the tears came. Hot and bitter, they streamed down her cheeks. She buried her face against her knees so that they old mage wouldn't see.

"Gather yourself, girl," Greta said. Her clawed fingers dug into Nyssa's shoulders, shaking her with surprising force for a woman so old and frail in appearance."It has only begun for you."

Nyssa slapped her away. Glaring now, she said, "It has ended for me. Illa's gone. I lost her."

"Everyone dies," Greta said, shrugging her humped shoulders. "The girl's time came and it went. What happened on the ice was meant to happen."

"Meant to happen?" Nyssa, forgetting the pain in her sudden rage, leapt to her feet. She meant to strangle the big-mouthed crone, but Greta vanished right before her eyes.

"Good," she said, now standing behind Nyssa, who spun around, wide-eyed, at the sound of the mage's voice. "Anger is what you need."

"Who are you?" Nyssa demanded. Greta spread out her hands. Her upward facing palms were pale as the moon, smooth as a young girl's, not the hands of an old woman.

"I've waited many, many years,"Greta said. "I'm much older than you think, child, and much younger. Today was meant to happen as it did. I've seen it come to pass for longer than you've been alive."

"You have the gift of prophecy?"But Nyssa didn't wait for an answer. "Why didn't you warn us, then? You could have saved her!" Her eyes scanned the cave, in search of the bone-hilt knife.

"Killing me is a waste of time," Greta said, holding up the knife so that the blade caught the firelight. "I'll die soon enough without your aide."She threw the knife at Nyssa's feet, but the girl did not move to retrieve it.

"Then tell me," she said. "Tell me what you've seen. Tell me what you've been waiting for me to do."

"You already know," Greta chuckled. "Go south. Find the direwolf."

"I don't know what you're-"

"Don't lie," the mage said sharply. "You can't run from this."

At being told she couldn't run from this, whatever this was, Nyssa steeled herself against the old woman's cryptic words. She would not obey a prophecy which foretold of her sister's death.

"You can rot," she said, spitting at Greta's feet. She spotted her shirt on the cave floor, pulled it over her head, and added, "I won't do it. I won't go south." She would return to Illa, as she'd promised. Then she would drown herself in the bay. Nyssa strode past the mage, to the cave's narrow entrance, but she paused when the woman spoke.

"No matter which direction you walk, all trails lead south for you," Greta warned. A chill travelled down Nyssa's spine. _I won't be played by this old coot, _she told herself sternly. Illa was waiting for her on the bloody bay.

* * *

Nyssa trudged back and forth from the forest to the bay, carrying wood for the pyre on her back. By dusk she'd gathered enough to build a pyre worthy of any over-the-wall kings, and she laid Illa's body upon it. She unearthed a cluster of purple flowers from the snow and wove them into her sister's red hair. _Cursed by fire. _Then she gently closed Illa's eyes.

She'd left the Frozenriver bodies, for the wolves, on the ice. Waiting for the sun to set, she held Illa's cold body and sang songs of death and winter, until darkness fell over her like a shroud of mourning. Nyssa wrapped the end of a thick branch in strips of cloth, soaked in wine, and held it in the fire until it ignited.

"Forgive me," she whispered, and then set the torch to the pyre. The wood burned well. Nyssa sunk to her knees, having lost the will to move. Soon, she was coated in soot. Embers stung her cheeks and burned her clothes. She longed to throw herself onto the flames, but had not the energy. Instead, she curled up on the ground, kept warm by the pyre. All around her, the wind howled.

* * *

The wolf howled. "I can't hear you," she cried. "I won't listen."

* * *

Nyssa woke to the smell of charred flesh and a stranger's hands around her neck. She opened her eyes. A hooded face blocked out the dawn.

"Morning girlie," the man said. She spat at him and he leapt back, wiped the saliva from his cloak, and then slapped her across the face hard enough to draw blood. Nyssa tried to stand, only to find that her ankles and wrists were bound by rope.

The man was not alone. Another hooded figure stood beside him. She could not make out their faces.

"This one's got fire," the man who'd slapped her said to his companion.

"Too much, maybe," the other said. "Look at her, all covered in blood. Bet she had something to do with all them bodies on the ice."

Nyssa could tell by their accents that neither of them were Free Folk. They sounded like the traders from over the Wall. _Slavers, _she thought. While they talked, she searched the ground for her knife. It wasn't where she'd left it the night before.

"Don't get any smart ideas," one of the hooded men growled. He slid his blade out of his sleeve and admired it for a moment. "I could make a nice profit off o' this."

"C'mon, Drust. Lets just leave her for the wolves. Look at her. She'll never sell."

The man named Drust ignored his companion. He crouched at Nyssa's head and pressed the point of the blade between her eyes.

"You'll behave, won't you, girlie?"His breath was hot and rancid. She did nothing. Weaponless, wounded, and bound, there was no hope of overcoming them. _I don't care, _she thought, looking to Illa's pyre. _Let me die._

"See, she's a good girl." Drust rustled her hair with the hilt of the knife. "And she's pretty under all that muck. All she needs is a good scrubbing and a couple o' beatings." He struck her across the face once more.

_Let me die. Let me die_. All went black again.


	4. Chapter 4

**"All men must die, Jon Snow. But first we'll live."**

The ground moved beneath her. Water struck Nyssa's face. She thought it was rain, but it burned her cracked lips and left a briny taste in her mouth. _Sea water_, she realized. Keeping her eyes closed, she wracked her memories for what had happened, why she was here, drenched with the sea. Her head felt full of fog. _I'm on a boat. _She'd been fishing with Alger and Illa...but they hadn't taken a boat. _We were attacked, _she remembered, her stomach clenching. _Greta had the hands of a young girl. A slaver took my knife._

Not wanting any of it to be true, she kept her eyes squeezed tight and pretended that she was home, in their tent and burrowed under the pelts with Illa beside her. She thought she heard her sister, urging her to wake up. Reluctantly, Nyssa opened her eyes.

The barge she was on was small. There was no below deck, no mast. It was a boat made for stealth, rather than speed. She turned her head and caught sight of the slavers, three of them, gathered at the prow with their heads bent close together to converse over the wind and waves. They appeared to be caught up in an argument, but she could not hear them.

She watched them for a moment, before turning her attention to the crude, iron shackles around her wrists and ankles. Shoddy craftmanship, but strong and tight enough that she couldn't slip them. A heavy, rusted chain was linked to her ankle restraints. She followed the trail of it with her eyes. It snaked across the desk, binding her to three other captives: an old man, a woman, and a girl child. All three of them looked half-starved. When the old man coughed, blood splashed out onto the deck. The woman hummed as she rocked the girl child in her arms.

Nyssa turned her eyes to the sky. She had no hope, no plan. When it did begin to rain, she didn't bother to cover herself. Freezing drops of water streamed down her face and neck, into her mouth and down her throat. An odd sense of peace fell over her. She didn't want to fight. She was content to stretch out on the splintered planks of the deck and let the sea carry her away.

* * *

Nyssa drifted in and out of consciousness. Sometimes she knew that she was on the boat, hurdling onward to wherever the slavers intended to sell her. In those moments, she knew she should be thinking of ways to escape. Other times, she heard the wolf in the wind, or she heard Greta, or Illa. Sometimes she heard her captors talking to one another. Sometimes the woman sang.

Sometimes it rained.

Other times the sun burned her face.

But most of the time, she couldn't remember who or where she was, and those were the times she favored best. She tried not to sleep, because when she did she dreamt and she remembered.

Sometimes she thought she was dead. Always, she wished that she was.

After five days, Nyssa's delirium broke. She opened her eyes and saw three crows circling the sun, and then the round, pale face of a woman filled her vision.

"You have to come back now," the woman said, as she wrung water from a cloth into Nyss's mouth. "They'll kill you, if you don't."She was one of the other captives.

"Your name?" Nyssa croaked.

"Cara," the woman replied. She glanced over her shoulder at the tree cloaked slavers nearby, then looked back down at Nyssa and whispered, "They're talking about you now. Think you're not worth selling."

_They're right, _Nyssa thought, but did not say.

"They'll kill you," Cara said again.

"I'm already dead."

"Your heart's still beating." The woman put her palm against Nyssa's chest. "Don't die by their hands, sister."The slavers broke apart. Cara scurried away when two of them swept over to the captives. The word _sister_ had cut Nyssa to the bone. She watched one of the slavers kick Cara out of his way. Clutching her stomach, the woman crawled back to the girl child and pulled her close.

"Don't bruise them," the other slaver said, kneeling by Nyssa. Like the two men who'd stolen her, she could not see his face beneath the hood.

"You're awake," he said. "Going to stay that way this time?"

Nyssa looked past him, to Cara and the girl. _Sister._ Then the slaver grabbed hold of her chin and turned her eyes back to him.

"Well?" he demanded. She wondered if he was even human. Anything could lurk under that hood.

"Yes," she said, as if the word were poison in need of being spat out. The man let go of her.

"Horse," he called out to the other slaver. "Get them saddled."

Nyssa grimaced, but made no sound as the man named Horse lifted her to her feet. She took one step forward and her knees buckled. Horse slung his arm around her waist and half-dragged her to the spotted bay grazing nearby. He tossed her onto the horse with ease, and then wrapped her chains around the animal's muscled neck.

She hadn't rode a horse in years. Her people preferred to travel by sled. She curled her fingers into the bays tangled mane, as Horse hefted the old man into the saddle. He was so thin they both managed to fit. Feverish heat rolled off of him. His breath was ragged in her ear.

When they began to move, Nyssa clamped her knees around the bay's sides.

"If you fall," the old man grunted, "So do I." His chains had been wound around her waist.

"I won't fall," she said. The slavers kept them at a brisk pace. There was no snow here. The ground was much flatter than the land she knew. Grassy slopes dotted the horizon. _We're over the Wall, _she realized.

"Where are they taking us?" she asked.

"Barrowtown, I s'pect," the old man answered. He coughed and hot blood splattered her neck.

"You're a Hornfoot," she guessed, judging from his voice.

"Was a Hornfoot. Now I'm just Beak. That's not the name Mam gave me, but it's the one I got now."

"No talking," Horse shouted from behind them. They fell silent. _Sister_ echoed in Nyssa's head. _Sister. Sister. _She didn't have a sister anymore. She didn't have a tribe.

* * *

The captives were not allowed to speak to one another, but they whispered any way, when the slavers weren't paying them attention. They told Nyssa about themselves in bits and pieces. Beak, the old man, had been exiled from his clan, though he would not say why. He'd been wandering when the slavers overtook him.

"I had a woman once," he told them. "And three little ones. They all left to join that Mance Rayder. I told 'em not to."He'd already been sick when the slavers found him. The stinking wound in his side was a gift from his own people, given to him when they'd tossed him out. It had not healed well.

Cara and the girl, Briar was her name, had been picking berries when they'd been caught. "She's got no father," Cara whispered one night, while the slavers drank by their fire. Nyssa didn't know if she meant the father was dead or unknown. Either way, she didn't ask questions. They told her what they wanted to and she told them nothing in return.

Briar never spoke. Cara worried she never would again. As they rode, she sung to the child, songs that Nyssa didn't know. Now the child was sleeping fitfully in her mother's lap. Cara gazed at the slavers' fire, which was too far away for them to benefit from its warmth. The three hooded men sat around the blaze and drank heavily from their skeins. She knew their names now: Horse was the most likely to give you a good kick, Alroy was the youngest and newest member of the company, and Drust was their leader.

Nyssa tore off a chunk of bread from the stale, half-loaf she'd been given that morning. She tossed the rest of it at Cara.

"For the girl," she grunted. The bread wasn't much, but she felt she owed the woman something. Cara had nursed her during her delirium. In some ways, she reminded Nyssa of her sister. The woman had a similar gentleness about her. When she sang, it eased Nyssa's troubled heart, if only for a little while.

"How much longer do you think we'll be on the road?" Cara asked. Nyssa shrugged. How was she to know, never having been this side of the Wall? The land here was strange. There was no life in it and she wondered why Alger would ever have wanted to come here, or why Mance Rayder was raising an army to conquer this bare, hilly land that felt as though it had died hundreds of years ago.

"Three days, I'd guess," Beak said. His face, silver in the moonlight, was gaunt and etched with pain. _He's dying, _Nyssa thought, _and he knows. _The old man had as good as told her.

"I'd rather die than be a slave," he'd said, while they rode together. He wanted to pass away before they reached Barrowtown and was upset that he had not yet.

"Have you been there?" Cara asked.

"Once, when I's a boy. My Pa traded with the Dustins."

"Who?"

"Lords they call themselves."

"What's it like, Barrowtown?" Cara asked.

"Loud, dirty. Didn't much like it."Beak spat out a glob of yellow mucus and blood. Nyssa did not like him much, but she did pity him. No man deserved to die this way. She crawled over to him, her chains rattled, and lifted his head to pour water from their shared skein down his throat. He immediately coughed it back up. His head fell against the gray grass. When she moved to go, he caught her wrist and held her there. His long, yellowed nails cut into her skin.

"I hear you dream," he whispered. "Got a bit of prophecy in my bones, too, girl."

"I don't dream," Nyssa lied, freeing herself from his hold. Beak laughed. He was always laughing, though she didn't know what at.

"Kind knows kind," he said. "I can smell the sight on you."

"All you can smell is your own rotting flesh," she snapped. Nyssa retreated, back to Cara and the girl. Soon, Beak had fallen asleep.

"Don't let him get to you," Cara said. "He's mad, I'd say."

Nyssa nodded, but she wasn't so sure. The wolf grew louder in her dreams every night. She turned her back on Cara and stretched out on the ground, but she did not close her tired eyes. She did not sleep at night, though she couldn't stop herself from dozing off during the day as they rode.

She heard Cara sigh. Then the grass rustled as the woman laid down as well. Nyssa braced herself for yet another long, cold night. _No matter which direction you walk, all trails lead south for you, _Greta had said, but Nyssa refused to believe that she was here, on the other side of the Wall, because of fate. It was ill-luck. Nothing more.

* * *

In the early hours of morning, Nyssa listened to Beak choke on his own blood. She didn't go to him until he grew silent. He was dead, she knew even before she reached him.

"You're free now," she whispered, wiping the blood from his chin and closing his eyes. Her fingers traced an old scar along his neck and she wondered what he'd been like as a young man.

Horse came up behind them. Nyssa recognized him by the stench. The slaver dropped his pants to piss on the corpse. His urine splattered her cheek, but she did not move. She waited for him to finish, and once he had, she cleaned Beak's face as best she could with her sleeve.

Nyssa was neither sad nor angry. No pyre would be built for the old man. They would not even bury him. His body would be left for the ravens and no one would remember the name his mother had given him, or even the name he'd given himself. Suddenly, she regretted not asking him why he called himself Beak.

In the gray light of dusk, with a dead land beneath her, she sang a death song of her people and kept vigil over the old man until the others woke and she was put onto the spotted bay without her riding partner. She looked back towards camp, where last night's fire still smouldered and Beak's body lay abandoned. Cara muffled her sobs against her daughter's hair. _Don't cry, _Nyssa wanted to tell the woman. Beak was where he wanted to be now.

But then she thought, perhaps Cara did not cry for the old man. Perhaps her tears were for them, the living.


	5. Chapter 5

**"Men of honor will do things for their children that they would never consider doing for themselves."**

Nyssa swatted at the flies that swarmed to her oozing wounds. She thought Beak had sent them to punish her for leaving him unburied. If so, she wished he wouldn't. After all, she'd had no choice in the matter. That same day two of the horses had died. The captives marched on foot now.

As Beak had guessed, they saw Barrowtown in the distance three days later. The town lay in the shadow of a great, mossy hill at its center.

"It's called the Great Barrow," Cara said. Briar clung to her back. The child had grown dangerously thin. The loss of the horses had been hardest on her.

"It's a holy place," Cara continued. "The Children of the Forest worshipped here. Least, that's what my mother said."

Nyssa shivered at the mention of the Children. But they were on the other side of the Wall and had not set foot on this land for many, many years. _Prophecy holds no power here. There is no magic._ Still, she kept here eyes on the Great Barrow as they approached the town. Wind tore at their clothes as they dragged their feet up the final slope. Night was falling by the time the slavers ordered them to stop outside the eastern gate.

"What is your business here?" a guard demanded. Drust approached him.

"We're here for market," he said, gesturing at the three dirty and ragged captives. The guard gave a grunt and the gate was raised. Nyssa bowed her head as they passed into the town. She paid no mind to the women leaning out of two-story windows and calling down to men in the street, or to the vendors pushing their carts over the cobblestones, or the dirty children running around. She focused only on memorizing their route and scanning the off-branching alleys and high walls. Climbing over was not an option. The walls were too heavily guarded.

The Great Barrow loomed over the whole town. Nyssa felt it was watching her. They waded through the sewage in the streets, until the slavers brought them to a stop again outside of a run-down inn.

"Watch 'em, boy," Durst said, jerking his thumb at the prisoners, before he and Horse disappeared inside the inn. Alroy kept close to the horses. Nyssa watched him stroke their manes and wondered how he'd ended up with the likes of the slavers. His voice hadn't even broken yet. He could be no older than thirteen.

Briar moaned for water and Nyssa seized a fleeting opportunity. She sidled closer to Alroy. Her chains rattled and he lifted his head at the sound. His hood slipped back and she caught a glimpse of orange hair and a freckled brow. _Kissed by fire_. Quickly, he pulled the hood back down. Nyssa held up her hands to signal she meant no threat.

"Water for the girl?" she said, timidly. Alroy glanced at Briar. He untied the skein from his saddle and dropped it Nyssa's feet.

"Much thanks," she said, bending down to retrieve it. She tossed the skein to Cara without taking her eyes off of the young slaver. "You're very kind, ser," she said.

"Ain't no ser," the boy muttered. "Not supposed to talk to you, neither. You might try 'an trick me into lettin' you go."

"You're too smart for that," Nyssa said. She stepped as close to him as the chains would allow. Alroy looked at her from underneath his hood.

After a moment, he said, "Didn't think your kind spoke the Common Tongue."

"Some of us do," she said. "Mostly us that live near the Wall."

"Are you one o' them, what they call it, a spearwife?"

"No."

"Oh," he said, sounding disappointed. "I thought cuz' we found you near all them bodies..."

Durst and Horse returned. Alroy gave her a shove back towards Cara and the girl.

"Told her not to talk," the boy muttered, bowing his head under Drust's shadowed gaze. Nyssa strained to hear them over Briar's whimpering.

"...put 'em on the block tomorrow," Durst was saying. "...if the gods are good, it'll go quick."

_Tomorrow then, _she thought. They would be sold. She trailed behind Cara, the girl, and the horses as they were ushered into the stable. Horse ushered them into the stall with the animals and locked the gate behind him.

"Don't go thinking 'bout busting out," he warned, leering at them. "Someone'll be at the door all night."

Once he'd gone, Cara and Briar settled down into the hay.

"Come," Cara said, patting the ground beside her. "You should sleep."

Nyssa shook her head. She would not sleep tonight anymore than she had any other. _I won't be sold_, she told herself. _I won't die like Beak._ She paced the narrow width of the stall and fingered the walrus-bone hilt of her father's knife, which she'd slipped from Horse's saddlebag when she'd bent down to retrieve Alroy's skein.

* * *

The horses brayed. The wind shook the weak stable walls. Nyssa lay on her stomach to peak through a crack between two wooden boards. She knew the slaver's guard routine. First Horse, then Alroy. She waited and waited for the changing of the look-out. Finally, there came the sound of men's voices. Horse's words carried to her.

"Keep an eye out, boy. Tomorrow we'll be that much richer."

She listened to Horse's footsteps fading into the distance. The inn door slammed shut. It was time. She reached up and pinched the spotted bay's rump. The animal let loose a shrill whinny. It beat its tail against the stall door. She hoped it's fit was loud enough to mask the sound of her knife hilt striking against her ankle chains. In the three days since Beak's death, she'd spent a good deal of time inspecting her binds and found their weak points.

"What're you doing?" Cara hissed. Nyssa's chain snapped. She scurried over to Cara and put her hand over the woman's mouth. The spotted bay had calmed.

"I'm leaving," she whispered. Cara's eyes widened. She looked from Nyssa's broken chains to the knife in her hand.

"You'll never make it out of town," she said. "The gate will be closed."

"We'll hide till morn and slip out tomorrow in the market flood."

"If you're caught-"

"I'll be killed," Nyssa finished for her. "Either way, I'll be free."She'd made up her mind. She would not be enslaved by man, nor by prophecy. Death did not frighten her nearly so much as living out the rest of her days captive to one or the other. If she did die, Illa would be waiting for her in the great beyond.

"It's easy to speak of freedom when you have no one else to think of," Cara said. She stroked her sleeping daughter's hair.

"Briar's coming with us," Nyssa said.

"And where will we go?" Cara asked. "She won't survive another journey like the one we've just done. She won't make it home."

"You'd rather she be a slave?"

"At least slaves have roofs over their heads and some food in their bellies." Cara smiled sadly. "We can't go with you. It's too great a risk."

"Please," Nyssa begged. Cara shook her head. There would be no convincing her to go.

"You must leave, if you're going," she said. "Gods be with you."

"And you," Nyssa said. She planted a quick kiss on Cara's brow. Then she stood, climbed over the stable gate, and hurried down the row of stalls. She stopped in the shadows by the open stable doors, where she could see Alroy pacing, but he could not see her. She clutched her knife, took a deep breath, and lunged.

The walrus-bone hilt struck hard against the back of Alroy's skull. The boy fell face first into the ground. She crouched, put the tip of the knife against the top notch of his spine. Her hand shook. Nyssa rose. She would not kill him. After all, he was only a boy and there was enough blood on her hands. She left him there to be found by his comrades and slipped into the darkness, in search of a place to hole up and wait out the night.

* * *

As she'd hoped, no one noticed her walk through the eastern gate the next morning. Market traffic was heavy. She kept her broken chains hidden under a cloak she'd stolen. By noon, the Great Barrow was so far behind her that it blended in with all the other lesser hills. Durst would not go through the effort of finding her, she hoped, but she still walked without pause, and sometimes even ran, until she could no longer even see the Great Barrow.

With the hills behind her, she fell to her knees on the gray grass plain. Laughter welled up from deep within her. Part madness, part relief. She lay on her back. The cold sunlight washed over her. After the laughter subsided, she considered where to go from here. _I'll die in the shadows of the Fangs, _she thought, her eyes closing. _I'll go as far north as I can. Away from this graveyard. Away from the wolf._ But first, she would find Beak's body and bury what remained of him.


	6. Chapter 6

**"No man is free. Only children and fools think else wise."**

Nyssa crouched in a cluster of sparse, prickly shrubs, her eyes on the rabbit three feet away and sniffing the air. It caught her scent, turned tail, and hopped away. She made a desperate lunge after the rodent, tripped on a root, and hit the ground. Spitting out a mouthful of dirt, she glowered at the rabbit as it retreated. It was the first game she'd come across in days. She'd seen plenty of tracks, but no animals, except for the crows that circled overhead. _I must smell like death, _she thought, listening to the crows caw.

Four days had passed since her escape from Barrowtown and in that time she'd eaten nothing more than handfuls of withered berries and one dead pigeon, which she'd wrestled from the jaws of a raven. Her stomach ached constantly and her throat burned. She'd encountered no streams. Not even a puddle. The days were cold and the nights colder. She slept while the sun was up and walked in the dark to keep her blood from freezing. Often, though, she dozed even as she walked, and would end up somewhere without knowing how she'd gotten there. She'd tried to follow the stars north, but had eventually given up. This land was too foreign.

"You'll eat soon enough," she shouted up at the crows. Walking on, she felt Beak's shadow trudging along behind her. His ghostly company was better than nothing, she supposed. Certainly better than the crows.

"Follow me," Beak's ghost said. He began to sing. Nyssa followed the sound, not caring whether or not it was just a mere figment of her imagination.

* * *

Hours later, she spotted a town on the horizon. Morning mist clung to the ground. It seemed to part just for her. Beak had long since stopped singing. She was alone again. The town shimmered like a mirage and she didn't fully believe it was there until she stood directly in its shadow. _Not safe, _a small voice in her head whispered. _Turn around. _

But if she did, she would certainly die. Hunger outweighed caution. There was no wall and no guards to protect the town. The gray grass faded into a dirt road that ran between two lines of thatched houses. Nyssa pulled her hood down low and made sure her chains were hidden under the thick folds. She followed the sound of voices, like a babbling stream drawing her in, to the market square. Her eyes went past the two dozen or so people in the yard, straight to a nearby cart piled high with vegetables. A tall, bearded man stood next to it. He held up a tomato and bragged loudly about his goods.

Nyssa circled the edge of the square and sidled over to the back of the cart. As quick as her clumsy, cold hands would allow, she snatched up whatever she reached first: two carrots, one of them snapped in half, and a shrunken potato. She shoved the vegetables into her cloak pockets, turned to flee, and collided into a wide, barreled chest.

"Thieving whore," the farmer growled. His big, dirty hands grabbed at her cloak. He dumped out the contents of her pockets. The shriveled potato rolled between his boots.

"Think you can steal from me," he said, his voice growing louder. Others in the square turned their heads to the source of the commotion. Nyssa caught sight of two armored men marching towards them, with their hands on the hilts of their swords. Instinct took over. She charged past the farmer and sprinted back the way she'd come, pushing her way through the gathered crowd.

"THIEF!" the farmer screamed. "THIEF! STOP HER!"

Nyssa had nearly made it out of the square when someone caught hold of her wrist. There was the snap of breaking bones. Her captor twisted her arms behind her back. She howled like a wild animal, gnashed her teeth, kicked at the air.

"Put her out," a man grunted and she struggled harder. _Not again, _she thought, panicking. _Please gods, not again._ Pain exploded across the side of her head. Just before she lost consciousness, she caught a glimpse of Beak's ghost, standing among the wide-eyed villagers. He was laughing.

* * *

She was blinded by glittering ice. Thick, white fog swirled up to her knees. She could not see the ground beneath. A figure rose from the mist. The Child of the Forest. The same one who'd come to her months ago. Nyssa tried to step back, but the fog held her in place.

"Am I dead?" she asked, when the Child stopped before her. The flowers woven in its hair emitted a sweet smell like nothing she'd encountered before. Suddenly, she felt calm.

"Not yet," the Child said.

"Where am I then?"

"The dungeons of Winterfell."

Nyssa looked around. Wherever she was, it sure didn't look like a dungeon.

"Am I dreaming?" she asked. The Child didn't answer. They turned their head, as if they'd heard something.

"There's little time," they said, looking back to her. "Listen closely. When they bring you to trial, tell them you've come to protect the boy."

"What boy?"

"The fallen child," the Child said. "Friend of the Three-Eyed Crow. Tell them the boy whom they call Bran is in grave danger."

"Is he?"

The Child smiled and said, "We all are."Then the fog overtook them. It rose over Nyssa's head until she couldn't see her hand in front of her face. The wolf howled. It was closer than ever before. Right at her back. Once more she tried to run, but the fog held her fast. The wolf was coming.

* * *

The cell was damp and cold, the stone walls slick with moss, but there was light, a sputtering torch by the iron door. Nyssa sat on a hard pallet on the floor, with her wrist cradled in her lap. The flesh over the broken bones had swollen to the size and shape of a goose egg, and the skin, stretched taut, was a deep shade of purple.

With her uninjured hand, she picked flecks of mold off the bread she'd been given. The stew, a thin broth with no meat nor vegetables, she'd already finished in two gulps. She tried to pace herself on the bread, but after the first bite, she crammed the rest into her mouth. It was the most wonderful thing she'd ever tasted. When she'd finished, she laid down on the pallet and pulled her knees against her now cramping stomach.

Nyssa didn't know whether to trust her dream. Certainly she was in a dungeon, but that didn't mean she was in Winterfell. What troubled her most was that from time to time she heard wolves howling nearby. At first, she'd thought it was in the dream, but no, she was awake now. Nyssa clamped her hands over her ears when the wolves started up their chorus once more.

She faced the wall and stared at the faint scratches in the stone. Fingernail_ marks. _They formed no words. She wondered if whoever'd left them had been trying to claw their way out. If so, they'd made very little progress. Nyssa hadn't escaped the slavers only to rot in a cell, but she didn't know where she could go from here. _I can't dig through stone_, she thought, putting the tips of her fingers against the scratch marks. Surely there was a way out of this. There had to be. The Child's advice came back to her. The wolves howled. But no, she would not listen. She would find her own way to freedom.

_I'll get out of this place, _she told herself. _I'll bury Beak. I'll find Cara and the child and I'll take them home._ When she fell asleep, the wolf did not follow. Instead, she dreamt she was home, in the shadow of the Frostfangs, and sitting by the fire, while Cara wove beads into Briar's braided hair.

* * *

"The pig's mine, your lordship."

"It's got my brand!"

"You branded it after you stole it from my pen."

"Enough!" Robb Stark's voice fell between the feuding smallfolk. Having heard enough, he held up his hands to silence them. Both still fuming and red-faced, they looked to him.

Robb had heard countless petty argument this morning. All of them were much the same. Winter was coming and the smallfolk, fearful of the cold time to come, had resorted more and more to theft. Somehow, all of this had now fallen to Robb.

"My Lord," Maester Luwin said, drawing the young man back to the matter at hand. The two farmers were waiting for his judgement.

"Cut the pig in half," Robb said. "Each of you will have a share."

Neither of them looked pleased by the verdict, but they bowed gracefully and muttered their thanks nonetheless.

"How many more?" Robb asked the maester. Luwin glanced at the long piece of parchment in his hands and counted silently.

"Thirteen," he said. Robb sighed. He'd much rather be out hunting with Theon in the wolfswood.

"Bring the next," he said, hoping to at least be finished with this ordeal by noon. He did not bother looking at the next complainant. Instead, he gazed out through the tall windows and only turned his attention back to the room when he was addressed by yet another farmer. The man was broad chested with a thick, dark beard. He stood at the foot of the dais and twisted a straw hat in his hands. His eyes shifted nervously about the hall, anywhere but at his lord.

"My lord, I'm called Giller," the man began. "I ain't got much more than a whole lot of mouths to feed."

"And your grievance?" Robb said, eager to move things along.

"This woman stole from me, my lord."

Robb had not noticed the woman, but he turned to her now. She was held by two guards. Her dark hair, matted with grease and dirt, hung in lank strands over her face. She did not bow. She did not look away. She met his gaze with all the dignity and contempt of the Lannister queen. _A wildling_, he thought, having seen a few of them before. Robb, both interested and wary, leaned forward in his father's chair.

"Is it true what he says?" Robb asked her.

"Yes," the woman said.

"And what right do you have, _wildling, _to take from my people?"

"None." Nyssa would not grovel at this boy-lord's feet. So this was the Lord of Winterfell, the great man in the north, as these people incorrectly called it? _He's just a little boy, too small for his chair_, she thought.

"Why have you come here?" Robb asked.

"My reasons are my own," she said. One of the guards raised his hand, as if to strike, but Robb stopped him with a glance. No blood would be spilled in his father's hall. He fell back into his chair and considered what to do. Wildlings were not welcome on this side of the Wall. The King's law called for their immediate execution, but Robb had never ordered another person's death. The woman's imperious stare unnerved him. Something in her expression reminded him of Old Nan's stories about white walkers and cannibal savages.

"Not only have you stolen," he said at last, "but you've trespassed on the King's land. Your presence this side of the Wall is not to be tolerated." Robb took a deep breath. "On the morn, you are to be executed, by order of the King's justice."

Nyssa balked at the sentence. She would not die at the hands of some boy-lord. His King's justice did not apply to her. Rage coursed under her skin. She struggled to subdue it. _You have no weapons, _she reminded herself. _You have no allies. You're weak._ There seemed but one option, though she was loathe to use it.

"Take her away," Robb ordered.

"I know about the boy," Nyssa shouted. "The one you call Bran. The fallen child."

For a moment, Robb, utterly stunned, could do no more than gape at the wildling woman, but soon he leapt to his feet. Maester Luwin put a hand on the young lord's arm to hold him back.

"Let her speak," the maester said, and then nodded at Nyssa to continue.

"The boy's in...in grave danger." She forced herself to say the words. It was not easy. They were bitter on her tongue. "I've come to protect him."

_It is either this or death, _she thought, and she could not die now. She had failed her village, her sister, but she would not fail Cara and the girl. She would find them, free them, and together they would go home. They would be a family.

For a long time, Robb said nothing. His mind reeled. _How could she know about Bran? What more does she know? _

"Return her to her cell," he said, needing time to think. He watched the guards take her away. The woman held her head high. Once she'd gone, Robb turned to Maester Luwin and said, "We must speak in private."

Having completely forgotten Giller, the farmer, he departed the hall with Maester Luwin, leaving the court to mutter amongst themselves about what had just happened. Robb said nothing until they'd reached the safety of his chambers. He fell into his favorite chair by the window and rubbed his temples. He felt a headache coming on. Maester Luwin waited for the young lord to speak first.

"Well," Robb said, letting his hands fall to his lap. "What should I do?"

"You are the Lord of Winterfell, not I," Maester Luwin said.

"Then tell me what you'd do if our roles were reversed."

While Maester Luwin considered his answer, Robb grew impatient. He drummed his fingers against the arm of the chair.

"She knows about Bran's fall," the maester finally said, "which leads one to wonder what else she might know."

"Do you think she has some kind of agreement with the Lannisters? Safety this side of the Wall in exchange for killing my brother?"

"It is possible, I suppose," Maester Luwin said. However, he sounded unconvinced. "I've heard that some wildlings still have the sight. I've never much believed it, but these are strange times, my lord, and winter is coming."

"I don't trust her," Robb said.

"A wise decision," Maester Luwin said. "Still, I would urge you to consider all of the possibilities. I agree with your mother, that Bran's fall was no accident. It may be beneficial to hear what this woman knows."

Robb nodded. He dismissed the maester.

Wildlings could not be trusted. He knew that as well, if not better, than every Westerosi child. Yet he thought of Bran, lost in a seemingly endless slumber. _What would father do? _But his father was not there and so the burden fell to Robb.


	7. Chapter 7

**"Different roads sometimes lead to the same castle."**

Robb sat on the edge of Bran's bed and watched his mother pace the room. He regretted telling her about the wildling woman. The curtains were drawn tight and a fire blazed in the hearth. Sweat dripped down the back of Robb's neck. He tugged at his collar. Being in this room made him sleepy and he wished his mother would say something, anything. He looked over at Bran's small, pale face, nearly swallowed whole by heavy furs. The boy's dark hair clung to his forehead. Even if he woke, he would never walk again. It was a needlessly cruel fate for a child.

"I wish to speak to this woman," Catelyn declared. She stopped pacing at last. Standing before the fire, her figure was silhouetted by the flames.

"I don't think that's a good idea," Robb said. "Wildlings lie. She'll try to trick you."

His mother narrowed her eyes. Did he think she were incapable of telling the difference between truth and lie?

"I know when I'm being lied to," she said. After all, she'd raised five children. "This woman, she said that Bran was in danger. From who? Did she mention the Lannisters?"

"No," Robb said. "We've talked about this, mother. There's no proof that the Lannisters-"

"Lysa would not lie."

"But why would they want to harm Bran?"

"I don't know," Catelyn snapped. "That is why I would talk to this...this wildling."

"And if I forbid it?"

"You may be serving as lord in your father's stead," his mother said, "but you are still my son. You'd do best to remember that."

Robb, half shamed and half angered by her words, lowered his eyes. Still, he couldn't help himself from muttering, "I've done what needed to be done, while you locked yourself up in this room."

Catelyn's expression softened. She put both of her hands on her son's shoulders. Gods, how he'd grown in the past month. Somehow he'd become almost a man without her even noticing.

"And I'm proud of you, as would your father be," she told him. "But we know Bran is in great danger. We must do whatever we can to keep him safe."

Robb sighed. He glanced back at his sleeping brother.

"Fine," he said. "You're not to go alone, though. I'll send one of the-"

"No," Catelyn interrupted. "No one else can know that Bran's fall was anything more than an accident. The Lannisters have many spies. Even in Winterfell, I'm sure."

"Then I'll go with you."

Catelyn shook her head. She would speak to the wildling alone. Though Robb did not like it, he knew when to accept defeat. His mother would do as she wanted.

And in truth, a part of him was relieved. Let her make the decision about what to do with the wildling.

* * *

Nyssa waited in her cell, to be told whether she was still to be executed in the morn. A guard had brought water and more moldy bread. She hadn't even bothered trying to ration herself this time. One way or the other, she would not be here long. Alone in the dark, her thoughts often turned to Cara and the girl. Had they been sold? Where were they now and how was she ever to find them, assuming she lived long enough to do so? Other times she thought of Illa. To pass the time, she'd close her eyes, pretend that she were home, and imagined what her sister would say to her now.

By the time she heard voices outside her cell door, Nyssa had begun to think that the young lord had forgotten about her. Though her body protested, she used the wall to push herself to her feet., and faced the door, ready to greet the boy-lord. But it was not he who stepped into the cell. Instead, it was a woman. Her hair was dark red and her face lined with sorrow, but her eyes were hard as flint. Nyssa noticed that the her hands were thickly bandaged.

"Leave us," Catelyn said to the guard at her back, without taking her eyes off of the wildling.

"My lady, I'm not sure-"

"Leave," she said again. The guard did as he was commanded. Catelyn closed the cell door.

"Who're you?" Nyssa demanded.

"Catelyn Stark, wife to Eddard Stark, the Lord of Winterfell, Warden of the North, and Hand of the King."

The wildling looked back at her blankly. Titles meant nothing to her.

"You're married to that boy-lord?"she asked. "But you're old enough to be his mother."

"I am his mother," Catelyn said.

"Oh." Nyssa didn't understand. Nor did she care. "Well, are you going to kill me?"

Catelyn made no reply. Her eyes raked over the filthy, savage girl, who couldn't be much older than Robb, though she'd referred to him as a _boy-lord_.

"How did you come here?" Catelyn asked after a minute.

"Slavers." Nyssa spat out the word.

"Slavery is outlawed in the Seven Kingdoms," Catelyn stated.

"Yeah, well, better tell that to the men who stole me."

"You escaped them?"

Nyssa nodded.

"Why have you come to Winterfell?"Catelyn demanded. The wildling woman pursed her lips. What should she say? Her life, she knew, depended on the answer she gave. Nyssa studied the red-headed woman's face. _I could take her, _she thought. But then what? She wouldn't even make it out of the castle before they caught her and she'd die for sure if she laid a hand on the boy-lord's own mother. _Tell the truth, _she knew Illa would advise.

"The gods brought me," Nyssa said. Having said the words aloud, the truth of them took root inside of her. It was fate that had brought her to Winterfell, where the wolves never ceased howling. _Damn, bloody fate._

"Go on," Catelyn said.

"I have dreams-"

"The sight?" Catelyn interrupted, her expression turned skeptical.

"My mother had it, too, and her mother before. In my dreams, though, I hear a wolf and I know I'm supposed to find it."

"The direwolf is the sigil of House Stark." Catelyn suspected that the girl was already aware of this, but the wildling's brow furrowed in confusion at the words.

"The what of what?"she said, and Catelyn could see that her confusion was not feigned. The girl truly knew not of what she spoke.

"I don't know anything about sigles and-"

"Sigils," Catelyn corrected.

"Sigils," Nyssa said carefully, "or of this house you talk of. All I know is that there's a boy here who I'm supposed to look after. That's what the gods tell me, at least."

"They told you about Bran, my son, in your dreams?"

"Yes."

"What did they say about him, about this danger he's in?"

Nyssa shrugged. "They don't say much that makes sense," she said.

"You called him the fallen child. What did you mean by that?"

"I don't know. That's what the gods called him."

Catelyn, not sure what to believe, stared hard at the girl. Nothing in her face suggested that she lied, yet what she claimed to be true just wanted possible. _But perhaps it is..._After all, Catelyn had prayed to the gods day and night for nearly a month. Could this wildling be their reply? It wasn't the way of the Seven, but Bran was a child of the North, and perhaps it was the old gods who'd now come to his aide. For Catelyn, raised in the light of the Seven, the ways of the old gods were still strange and shrouded in mist. She did know, though, that the wildlings were said to still worship the same gods as the Starks. Perhaps then it was not so strange that they'd send this woman to look after Bran.

"Someone is trying to kill my son," Catelyn said. She trusted the wildling, though she could not quite say why. "They sent an assassin to do the deed." As she said the words, she felt for the valyrian steel dagger, which she kept safe in the fold of her belt. The dragon-bone hilt was hard under the fabric. Nyssa looked at her with that same blank-eyed expression and Catelyn continued on before her certainty failed her.

"I mean to ride south," she declared. "I mean to find out who wants my boy dead."

"What's that got to do with me?" Nyssa asked, caring not a whit about the red-headed woman's plans.

"While I'm gone, I'd have you do what you claim the gods have sent you to do. Protect my son." Robb had ordered that one guard be posted in Bran's room and two without at all times, but it was not enough. Whoever this wildling woman was, why ever she was here, she was clearly stronger than she looked, to have escaped a band of slavers on her own.

"I will pay you upon my return," Catelyn went on. "And, if you serve my family well, you shall be allowed to go wherever you please."

"If I don't do it?" Nyssa asked.

"You'll be executed in the morning."

"Guess I'll do it, then," she said, disliking both of her options. She agreed only for the promise of future payment. Once the red-headed woman returned, Nyssa would have enough money to find Cara and the girl. Perhaps she would even have enough to buy their freedom and take them all home.

* * *

The red-headed woman had taken Nyssa from the cells and brought her to a room on the servant's corridor, which ran the length of the Great Hall one floor below. The room was small and bare, with only a narrow bed, which had no linens yet, and no windows. Despite the humbleness of her new lodgings, Nyssa was glad to be out of the dungeons. It was warm in the main castle. When she'd touched the stone walls, she'd expected them to be cold as ice, but they were quite the opposite.

"Winterfell was built on a hot spring," the Lady of Winterfell, or so she called herself, had explained. "The water runs behind the walls. It is how the castle is heated."

To Nyssa, the hot stones were like magic. Never had she been so warm in her life. She rose from the pewter tub, the water now cloudy with over a month's worth of blood and dirt. Unashamed by her nakedness, she stood before the red-headed woman, who was perched on the bed, watching her thoughtfully.

Catelyn's eyes roamed over the girl's goose-pimpled flesh. Bruises of various colors- yellow and green, black, blue, and purple- covered nearly every inch of the wildling's body. Across the girl's ribs ran an angry and red cut, which had been clumsily stitched. The wound looked to have been made by some sort of blade. _She can fight, _Catelyn thought, assured that she'd made the right choice in releasing the wildling.

"I'll have our maester tend to your injuries," she said to the girl.

"What's a maester?" Nyssa asked. The faintest of smiles came to Catelyn's lips. She shook her head. The girl had many questions. As they'd walked together through the empty corridors of the castle, she'd stared wide-eyed and wondering at all they passed.

"A maester is a man of learning," she explained.

"What do they learn?"

"All kinds of things. Medicine, history, husbandry." The list went on and on. Nyssa still did not understand, but she asked no further questions. When she stepped out of the tub, filthy water splashed over the edge and onto the floor. Catelyn reached for the robe, laid out on the bare bed beside her. As she did so, the door swung open and Robb, his cheeks flushed with rage, stormed into the room.

"You released her?" he cried. "You-?" But he trailed off as soon as he caught sight of the naked woman. At first he did not recognize her as the wildling, until their eyes met. She looked at him much as she had in the Great Hall, as if he were nothing more than a fly she desperately wanted to swat. Bruised and battered as she was, he could not help but take note of her body. Beads of water trickled down her legs. Her breasts were small and her nipples pebbled by the cold. Robb felt a sudden hardening between his legs. His eyes moved from her breasts to her pale, sunken-in stomach, to the water droplets collecting in her belly button, to the shadowy place between her...

Catelyn cleared her throat, reminding her son that she was in the room. His cheeks an even darker shade of red than they'd been upon entering, Robb turned his eyes to the stone wall and said, "I didn't say you could let her go."

Catelyn decided it was time that he knew of her intentions. She'd withheld her plans from him long enough. "I'm going south," she declared. "To find proof of the Lannisters' crimes."

Robb forgot about the naked wildling. He gaped at his mother.

"You're mad," he said at last. "You can't go. What about Bran and Rickon?" He stopped himself from adding _what about me_, as he could feel the wildling's eyes on him and did not want to sound like a petulant child.

"It is for Bran that I must go," Catelyn said, stepping towards her son. "And while I'm away, Nyssa is to look after him."

Robb glanced again at the wildling. The sight of her nakedness once more distracted him.

"By the gods," Catelyn sighed. She tossed the robe to the girl. "Dress," she commanded. Nyssa pulled the robe over her shoulders. The fabric was softer than anything she'd ever felt. It was like sunlight on her skin. Once she was covered, Robb regained himself.

"I'll go to King's Landing," he said, squaring his shoulders.

"No, there must always be a Stark in Winterfell," Catelyn told her son. "You're needed here."

"Fine, but the wildling can't just be allowed to roam wherever she likes."

"I have a name," Nyssa snapped. He ignored her.

"Her kind can't be trusted. Whatever she's told you, it's a lie."

"We've come to an agreement. Nyssa stays." Catelyn said, her voice firm. Though he may look almost a man grown, Robb was still just a boy and she was still his mother. Glaring at her now, he looked five years old again, furious at being told he couldn't go off with his father to put down the Greyjoy rebellion.

"We can increase the guard on Bran's room," Robb said, "We've plenty of men. Honorable and loyal men."

Catelyn sighed. She did not expect him to understand. Honor and loyalty would not keep Bran safe from the Lannisters.

"Don't you think I can protect him?"her son demanded.

"I think you bear too many responsibilities as it is," she said frankly. "You cannot be with Bran at all times. She can."

"But-"

"I've made my decision. In the morning, I ride south, and when I return I expect to find the girl unharmed."

Robb looked from his mother, to the wildling, and back to his mother. His father would never have allowed this. It was madness, plain and simple, and he didn't understand why his mother could not see that. Still, her stony gaze kept him from protesting any further, though he longed to scream at her. Unable to do anything else but fume silently, Robb turned and left the room without another word. The door slammed closed behind him.

"I don't think he likes me much," Nyssa noted. Much of their conversation had gone over her head, but the boy-lord's animosity was obvious enough.

"He'll do as I say," Catelyn said, unsure of the truth of her words even as she spoke them. She moved to the door. Her hand on the knob, she turned back for one last look at the wildling. _I am doing the right thing, _she told herself. Robb would understand in time, or so she hoped.

"I'll send the maester. Rest now." Then, thinking of the girl's bruised and broken body, she added, "You are safe here."

Left alone, Nyssa curled up on the bare mattress, using the robe as a blanket. Outside, the wolves and the wind howled. Perhaps this was not the place she wanted to be, but at least it was warm. Clean now, and fed, she allowed herself to relax for the first time in weeks. Soon, she hoped to be sailing home on the red-headed woman's payment, with Cara and Briar at her side. Soon, she hoped to see the Fangs again, to be close to her sister and far from this dead land. But until then, she supposed she might as well enjoy the warmth.

The boy-lord did not intimate her. Nor did his mother. Only the howling of the wolves did. Fate might have brought her here unwillingly, but it could not keep her here. As soon as the red-headed woman returned, Nyssa would go. She'd run from fate, and from the wolves, as fast as her feet would carry her.


	8. Chapter 8

**"When you find yourself in bed with an ugly woman, the best thing to do is close your eyes and get on with it."**

The morning was gray. Mist hung over the hills. Robb travelled with his mother as far as Winter Town. When they stopped to part ways, less than a league from the town, they had a moment alone, as they waited for Theon and Ser Roderick to catch up to them. Catelyn looked back towards Winterfell. From here, she and Ser Roderick were to ride on to White Harbor. Tucked into her belt, along with the assassin's dagger, was a leather pouch heavy with gold and silver, more than enough to buy them passage to the capital. If the weather was on their side, they would arrive ahead of Ned and the royal party.

"I need you to be strong now," she said to her son. "I need you to protect your brothers. These are dangerous times."

"You've got your wildling to protect them," Robb said stiffly.

"It is you whom I trust above all others." Catelyn reached out and placed her hand over his, clenched around the reigns of his horse. "What are the Tully words?" she asked him.

"Family, duty, honor," Robb said.

"And what comes first?"

"Family."

"You must trust me, Robb." Catelyn pulled back her hand. After avoiding her gaze all morning, he finally looked at her. His eyes were Tully blue, like hers.

"I trust you, mother," he said.

From the top of the hill, Robb watched his mother and Ser Roderick grow smaller and smaller in the distance, until the mist swallowed them whole. Without a word to Theon, he urged his horse into a gallop and sped back to Winterfell. The Tully words rang false in his ears. _Family. Duty. Honor. _But they had all abandoned him. His father and sisters, Jon, and now even his mother.

* * *

As soon as Robb passed through Winterfell's gate, he caught sight of the wildling woman, perched on the low, wooden fence around the training yard. He leapt down from his horse and tossed the reigns to Theon.

"Take them in," he ordered his father's ward, and then marched straight to the wildling. Nyssa watched him approach. She took a bite out of the apple she'd pilfered from the kitchen. When the boy-lord stopped before her, she spat out a seed at the ground between them.

"I take it your mother's gone, then," she said. Robb squared his shoulders against her imperious stare. _She's just a woman, _he told himself, but she wasn't just a woman. She was a wildling. A lying savage. He should kill her now, regardless his mother's orders. After all, was he not the Lord of Winterfell?

As he glared at her, debating with himself, Grey Wind trotted up to his side. Nyssa's eyes widened at the sight of the wolf pup. She leapt down from her perch, so that the fence stood between her and the animal.

"That's a direwolf," she said, not taking her eyes off of the beast. She'd never seen one before, though she'd heard them often enough, both in her dreams and her waking hours. As children, Alger's father had warned them not to stray too far from camp. "Else a direwolf will snatch you up," he'd say to scare them. Everyone knew direwolves didn't travel as far south as the Bay of Ice, though Nyssa had once come across a few tracks in the Fangs.

"It is," Robb said. Grey Wind sat on his haunches at the boy-lord's feet. She looked into the little beast's eyes, golden like the Child's. _Go south. Find the direwolf._ A chill swept over her.

"Didn't think you had them in the south," she said.

"This isn't the south," Robb said. Didn't she know anything? Clearly, Grey Wind made her uncomfortable. She gripped the apple in her hand so tightly that her knuckles turned white. When she spoke, however, her voice was steady.

"It is for me," she said. Nyssa threw her half-eaten apple over the boy-lord's head. The direwolf chased after it across the yard. She was glad to see it go.

"They're not meant to be kept as pets," she said. _Neither are wildlings, _Robb thought, but didn't say. The words were meant for his mother and she was no longer here.

"I ought to kill you," he said.

"Go ahead, then," Nyssa said. Robb put his hand over the hilt of his sword, but did not draw the blade from its sheath. She ducked under the fence and strode past him. Her shoulder knocked into his as she did. Robb made no move to follow her.

Grey Wind returned. Robb moved his hand from his sword hilt to scratch his wolf pup's head. His mother had hated the wolves at first. _Unnatural_, she'd called them, but it had been Summer who'd ripped out the assassin's throat and saved Bran's life. Robb believed that the gods had sent the direwolves, one for each of the Stark children, even Jon, to protect them. He knew his mother believed the same about the wildling woman.

Catelyn had allowed them to keep the direwolves. Grudgingly, Robb decided it was only fair to let his mother keep the wildling.

* * *

Nyssa tugged at the tight-fitting sleeves of the dress she'd been given to wear. It was a simple, servant's smock, spun from cotton thread, which was dyed a deep shade of blue. She hated it. What had the red-headed lady done with her soft, doe-fur leggings and tunic? She stumbled over the hem of the dress, which was a a few inches too long and dragged across the stone floor, as she paced outside of the fallen child's room.

"He's slept for nearly a month now," the red-headed lady had told her a week ago, when she'd first brought Nyssa here. "We don't know when, or if, he'll awake."

Nyssa paused in her pacing and stared at the closed door. She wasn't supposed to go inside. The boy-lord had told her as much.

"You stand in the hall," he'd said. "One of our guard will stand with you."

The guard, however, had fallen asleep nearly an hour ago. Sitting on the floor, with his back against the wall, the man snored into his boiled leathers. His head was gray and his face etched with wrinkles. It seemed no wonder that the red-headed lady had been so desperate for aide. Her lordling son had only old men and green boys at his command.

"Most of our guard has gone south with my husband," the red-headed lady had explained. Nyssa didn't care where their guard had gone. She kicked the knight's foot. He grunted in his sleep. _Might as well be dead, _she thought, turning her attention back to the closed door. When the boy-lord came to visit his brother, she tried to steal glances into the room, but only ever saw darkness and the glowing, golden eyes of a direwolf.

That very wolf was now scratching at the other side of the door. She listened to it whine and hoped that the guard would awaken. Nyssa couldn't bear the sound of the pup's whimpering for very long, though. She checked the hall, to make sure she was alone, and turned the iron knob. Before she'd opened the door all of the way, the wolf pup wriggled out of the room. She leapt back when it darted past her.

There were three wolves in Winterfell, but she couldn't tell them apart. To her, they all looked and sounded the same. She no longer heard the wolf in her dreams, but their howls filled her waking hours. _You won't be here long, _Nyssa told herself. At night, when the wolf song made her restless, she'd try to fill her mind with thoughts of Cara and Briar.

She moved to close the door once more, but a glimmer of light from within stopped her. No one was here. The guard snored ever louder. She didn't want to enter the room, didn't want to see the fallen child, but her feet seemed to move of a will not her own. Nyssa stepped over the threshold. It took a moment for her eyes to adjust to the darkness. A low fire burned pitifully in the hearth.

She was drawn further into the room, to the great, four-poster bed. Nyssa squinted down at the pale, little face lost in a cocoon of furs. The boy couldn't be any older than ten. He was still as death, but when she put the back of her hand close to his mouth, she felt his breath. The right side of his face was swollen and mottled. The left was smooth and unblemished. She reached out to touch a faded, purple bruise on his cheek.

The moment her fingertips brushed against the boy's warm cheek, the room melted around her. Nyssa wanted to withdraw her hand, but couldn't. She found herself in a strange, dark place. The smell of dirt was overpowering. The low burning fire was gone. Behind her, there came a rustling of wings. Something heavy landed on her shoulder. She turned her head and saw three beady, crow eyes staring back at her.

"Hey, what are you doing in here?"

Someone knocked her arm from the boy's face. Nyssa blinked. She was back in the castle, but the smell of dirt lingered in her nose. She looked at her shoulder, half expecting a crow to be perched there.

"You're not supposed to be in here," the guard said. He made a grab for her arm, but she leapt around him. Without looking back at the fallen child, she fled the room and kept going until she was outside of the castle. Wind tore at her dress and tangled the fabric around her legs. She looked to the woods and wondered how far it was to the Wall from here. Perhaps she could find a map, plot a route home, run far from this place while she still could.

Then she thought of Cara and the girl. Nyssa would not leave them behind, to live and die as slaves. It was not a fate she'd have wished on any one, not even Bone Dust. But to free them, to get them home safely, she needed the red-headed lady's money. _Think of Cara. Think of the girl._ She squeezed her eyes shut and tried to bring their faces to her mind. Instead, she saw the three crow eyes again, watching her from some faraway place. _Leave me alone, _she thought. _I just want to go home._

* * *

Twilight cloaked the grounds of Winterfell. Nyssa found the boy-lord in the stable. She leaned against the rough-hewn wall and watched him brush down a spirited, white gelding. The red in his hair gleamed copper in the torchlight. After a minute, he stopped what he was doing and glanced over his shoulder. When he caught sight of her, standing half in shadow, he wasn't surprised. He'd felt her eyes burning into his back, as they so often did. Robb hated the way she looked at him and she always seemed to be lurking nearby.

"What do you want?" he said, turning away from her.

"My knife," Nyssa said. "And my clothes."

"Your clothes were burned." Robb returned the brush to its hook. "And you can't have the knife."He tried to step past her, but she moved with him, blocking his way. He had no choice but to look at her again.

"I want my knife," Nyssa said. Her eyes looked almost black in the dim light.

"You are not getting it," he said, enunciating each syllable.

"How am I supposed to protect your brother if you won't give me any weapons?" she demanded.

"You're not supposed to protect him. I am. The only reason I've allowed you to stay is-"

"Allowed me?" Nyssa snorted. "Who do you think you are, boy?"

Robb's fingers curled into fists at his sides. "I'm a lord," he said. "You will address me as such."

"Fine, _my lord_. Give me back my knife."

"No." Losing his patience, he pushed her aside. Nyssa's broken wrist hit the stall gate. She hissed and cradled her arm to her chest.

"I could kill you without the knife, you know," she called after him. Robb kept walking. He didn't doubt that she could. Yet still, he wouldn't give her any advantages and he'd taken to sleeping with her knife under his pillow. It was a fine piece of craftsmanship. Sometimes, when he couldn't sleep, he would count the notches in the hilt and wonder what they were for. Why had she made them? Why was she here?

Nyssa glared after him long after he'd gone. They'd burned her clothes and stolen her father's knife- the only things she had left of home.


	9. Chapter 9

"**They hate you because you act like you're better than they are."**

Greta's dirge fanned the fire. A hundred shadowy figures stood round the blaze. Nyssa passed her baby sister into Alger's skinny arms and stepped free of the circle of mourners, towards the pyre. She reached out her hands, to touch her mother's face one last time.

"No girl," her father hissed, pulling her away from the pyre by the back of her tunic. He folded his strong arms around her and held her fast, until the baby began to wail.

"Give her here," he said to Alger.

"Let me," Nyssa said, holding open her arms. Alger handed over the squealing and bundled babe. _Kissed by fire, _she thought, looking from the infant's tuft of red, downy hair to the flames now licking at her mother's long, red tresses. She touched the baby's milky cheek.

"What will you call her?"her father asked.

"Illa," Nyssa said. She looked to her mother for approval, but could no longer see the woman's face through the smoke. The wolves joined Greta's dirge. Nyssa moved closer to her father.

"They won't come near the fire," he assured her.

* * *

All memories are dreams. At least, that's what Greta told her once. Or were all dreams memories? Nyssa couldn't remember. She smashed the lumps in her porridge against the bottom of the wooden bowl.

At the other end of the long table, three servant girls were finishing up their own suppers. They glanced over at her from time to time, but said nothing to her. None of them ever did. Nyssa overheard the other servants whispering about her in the halls. She ignored them. It didn't matter that they were frightened of her or that they hated her. _You'll be gone as soon as the red-headed lady returns, _she told herself.

Still, their chatter was too much for her this morning. Two weeks she'd been in this great, stone castle. She'd even begun to hate how warm it was. All day, and most nights, she stood outside of the fallen child's room, and had not dared to go inside again. That did not stop the three-eyed crow from visiting her, though. Often he perched on her shoulder while she slept. This morning, as she'd dressed, Nyssa noticed three, fine scratches on her shoulder that hadn't been there the night before. By noon, they'd vanished.

One of the servant girl's laughed, high and shrill, before she was shushed by the others. Nyssa stood. Staring straight ahead, she strode past them.

"You can't take that out of the hall," one of the girl's said. Nyssa looked back at her. A young little, thing with straw for hair and buttons for eyes, but she was braver than her friends, who ducked their heads under Nyssa's glare.

"The bowl," the straw-haierd girl said. Nyssa looked down at her half-eaten porridge. Such strange rules they had this side of the Wall. Who ever heard of a person not being able to eat wherever they pleased? Without a word, Nyssa turned around and left the servant's hall, with the bowl cradled in her hands.

She finished her supper outside and watched the boy-lord play with swords. Once it grew dark, he called an end to the training session. His men gathered the swords. Long after they'd finished and gone, he remained in the yard.

Nyssa didn't understand this place or its people. She left the bowl in the grass and returned to her post outside of the fallen child's room.

* * *

Robb yawned over the account books. His arms ached from training this evening. Of late, he often found himself distracted in the yard and he suffered the bruises for it. He couldn't remember all that Ser Roderick had taught him, while his mind constantly wandered to his mother and Bran. Where was Catelyn now? Had she and Ser Roderick made it safely to White Harbor? There'd been no ravens. Robb had not expected any, but he worried nonetheless.

The candles were getting low. He made a note to have more brought up in the morning. His days were long and his nights longer. Across the table, Maester Luwin was hunched over a roll of parchment, so long that it touched the floor. The old man didn't seem in the least bit tired. Not for the first time, Robb was shamed by the maester's diligence. But he could not continue working this night. His eyes burned with fatigue.

"We can finish this tomorrow," Robb said, pushing aside the papers in front of him.

"As you wish, my lord," Maester Luwin said. He looked up at the young lord. In the flickering candlelight, his eyes looked more sunken than ever. "There is one more matter I'd like to discuss, though."

_Of course there is, _Robb thought, but nodded for the maester to continue.

"It's the wildling, my lord. Some of the servants have begun to complain. They do not feel comfortable sharing quarters with her," Maester Luwin said.

"Where would they have me put her?" Robb snapped. "One of the guest rooms? Perhaps the one the King stayed in?"

Maester Luwin's expression stayed unchanged. He gave the young lord's temper a moment to cool before speaking again.

"Perhaps she could house with the guards," he suggested. Robb was tempted. He would not have to worry about her as much if she were put with the guards.

"No," he said. "I wouldn't risk having a woman in with them. She'll have to move into the main castle. Have a room prepared on the east wing." It was the farthest place in the main castle from his and Bran's rooms. Not that distance mattered.

"Yes, my lord," Maester Luwin said. He gathered his parchments and swept out of the room. Robb was too tired to move from his chair to the bed. He rested his head on the table instead and soon was asleep.

* * *

Robb found the wildling outside of his brother's room.

"Leave us for a moment," he said to the guard. Nyssa was sitting on the floor, with her back to Bran's door and her knees cradled to her chest. Once he could no longer hear the guard's footsteps, he addressed her.

"I've decided to put you in a different room," he said.

"Is it about the bowl?" she asked, getting to her feet. "You're going to lock me back up for that?"

Robb didn't have a clue what she was talking about.

"Bloody hell," she went on, "you southerners have got some stick up your ass. If it's such a big deal, I won't take anymore of your dishes out of the hall."

"I don't care about that," Robb said. He was sorely tempted to laugh, but feared she might kill him if he did. "You scare the servants."

"Do I?" Nyssa shrugged. She eyed the boy-lord. He was growing out a beard, but so far it was less than impressive and made him look even younger than he already did. _I scare him, too_, she thought, when he looked away first.

"Someone will show you to your new room," Robb said. "It's in the main castle."

"Thanks ever so much, _my lord_."

He cringed at the way she said _my lord, _how she always said it that way, mockingly. His father had taught him to never hit a woman, but when she called him _my lord_, he found it difficult to follow his father's teachings.

"Is that all you wanted?" she asked.

"No," he said, for dignity's sake. She didn't get to decide when their conversation was over.

"Well?" Nyssa said.

"Don't take any more bowls out of the hall." He couldn't think of anything else. Feeling like an idiot, he turned before she could see the flush creeping up his neck.

* * *

The guard's name was Alfwald.

"But most folks just call me Wald," he'd told her on the day of their meeting. Nyssa liked it best when he stood with her outside the fallen child's room. He didn't seem frightened of her, like the servants, and he didn't glare at her as the guards did. Mostly he just talked about things she didn't understand, but she found his rambling oddly soothing. It was how Illa had talked. On and on, without pausing for breath.

Sometimes she listened to him, but now was not one of those times.

"You have to wait for the quince to cool, then add your milk and sugar. Else wise the bread gets all-"

"How long does it take to get to the king's castle?" Nyssa interrupted. Wald looked surprised. In all the hours they'd spent together, she'd never once spoken to him.

"Why you want to know that?" he asked.

"Just do," she said. No one was supposed to know where the red-headed lady had gone.

"Well, I guess it depends on how you travel," Wald said. "A month by road, three weeks by sea."

Nyssa assumed the lady would have taken the faster route. It had been three weeks since her departure. _Halfway there, _Nyssa thought. Hopefully, the red-headed woman would not stay long in the king's city.

"You aren't planning on going off to King's Landing?" Wald asked.

"Maybe," she lied.

"I'd pay to see that," the guard chuckled. "A wildling bitch in the capital. Them southron lords would piss themselves. Probably be to warm for you up there and-"

Nyssa stopped listening to him when the straw-haired servant girl, Hild she was called, rounded the corner. As she approached, she glared at the wildling woman over the bundle of bedding in her arms. Nyssa leaned against the door of the fallen child's room.

"Let my by," Hild said.

Nyssa said nothing. Nor did she move. She simply stared at the straw-haired girl.

"I said move." Hild's voice shook. _She's not as brave as she thinks, _Nyssa thought.

"Go on, budge over," Wald said. Nyssa stepped aside, but as Hild pushed past her, into the room, she growled in the girl's ear. Startled, Hild stumbled. The bedding spilled out onto the floor. Quickly, she bent down, scooped up the linens, and hurried into the room. The door slammed on Nyssa's face, but the wildling smiled, rather pleased with herself. She'd never seen someone's ears go as red as the straw-haired servant's just had.

"Why'd you go and do that?" Wald asked.

"Might as well be what she thinks I am," Nyssa said, leaning against the wall once more. The stone warmed her back.

"And what's that?"

"A feral dog."

Wald laughed again. She wasn't offended. It didn't matter what the southerners thought of her. Soon, she'd be gone, and they could all rest easy again.

There was a shriek from inside the room. Before either she or Wald reached the door, Hild tumbled out into the corridor, her eyes wide. _The boy's dead, _Nyssa thought, upon seeing the servant girl's pale, stricken face.

"What is it?" she snapped.

"He...he's awake," Hild stammered.

"Fetch the maester," Wald ordered. When the girl didn't move, he barked, "Go!" Hild shook her head, blinked at them for a second, and then sprinted down the corridor. Wald followed close behind her, no doubt to find the boy-lord. Nyssa, completely forgotten, stood where they'd left her.

Hild had left the door open in her haste. Yet again, Nyssa found herself drawn to the room. The fallen child was awake. But who was he? Friend of the three-eyed crow, the Child had said. The words meant nothing to her. _It doesn't matter, _she told herself. _The boy's no concern of yours._

Even as she thought the words, she stepped into the room. The boy was propped up in bed. His bruises had mostly healed. His face was no longer swollen. Nyssa walked to the foot of the bed. His eyes followed her every step. Remembering what had happened when she'd touched him, she dared not get too close.

"I won't hurt you," she said. The fallen child did not look frightened, though.

"I know," he said. "I dreamt about you." His brow furrowed. Nyssa thought he looked older than he was. _Older than his boy-lord brother even._

"The crow told me you'd be here," the fallen child continued. "He said you're meant to help me. Is it true?"

Nyssa heard voices in the hall. She glanced back at the door just as the boy-lord burst through, with the old healer and Wald on his heels. Robb's eyes went first to Bran, then to the wildling, and finally back to his brother. He'd punish Wald later for leaving the woman on her own. For now, all that mattered was that Bran was awake. He hadn't dared to believe it until now.

Before any of them could speak, one of the direwolves broke past the men, still gathered in the doorway, and leapt onto the bed. The pup licked the boy's face. The fallen child smiled. He no longer looked older than his years.

"Summer," he said, grinning up at Robb. "His name's Summer."

"Strange name for a beast of the north," Nyssa muttered, backing away from the bed. She did not like seeing the boy with his wolf. The prophecy rang in her ears. As did the boy's question, left unanswered. _He said you're meant to help me. Is that true? _

"Leave us," the boy-lord ordered. For once, Nyssa was glad to obey him.


	10. Chapter 10

**"The southron had it easier. They had their septons to talk to, someone to tell them the gods will and help sort out right from wrong. But, the Starks worshiped the old gods, the nameless gods, and if the heart trees heard, they did not speak."**

The boy-lord stayed in his brother's room for a long time. Nyssa paced outside. Blood drummed in her ears.

"It's a shame," Wald said. She'd forgotten he was there.

"What?" she asked. The guard nodded towards the door.

"The little lord, he won't ever walk again."

Not the red-headed lady, or the three-eyed crow, or the Child had told her anything about the boy being a cripple. Had they, she'd have told them it was better to kill him quick, while he still slept.

"Strange, you know," Wald said. "That boy's been climbing these walls for years. Her ladyship used to send us out after him, but we could never catch him. Damn near broke my neck trying."

The wildling scowled. The Child had called the boy the fallen child, but the red-headed lady insisted her son had been pushed. In the three weeks Nyssa had been at the castle, she'd given no thought to who wanted the little boy dead. Whenever she did begin to wonder, she reminded herself that none of it was her concern. She stood outside the fallen child's room, day and night, for the money, for Cara and Briar, for home. Getting involved in a southron feud was not part of the plan.

But the fallen child's face haunted her. She saw it when she closed her eyes, even if just to blink. What kind of monster would take the life of one so young or doom them to a cripple's fate? Nyssa felt a surge of anger towards the faceless, nameless murderers.

When the boy-lord finally departed the room, Nyssa fell into step beside him. Robb glanced over at her, but said nothing. Though all he wanted was to be alone, he knew that if she had something to say to him, she'd say it. If he told her to bugger off, she wouldn't. _She's like a fly, _he thought, as they rounded the corner. _No matter how many times you swat at her, she buzzes back._

As soon as they rounded the corner, and Alf was out of earshot, Nyssa asked the question that had burned on the tip of her tongue since she'd spoken to the fallen child.

"Who are these people that want him dead?"

Robb's step faltered. They were alone. Even so, such matters weren't to be discussed in the hall. There are spies everywhere, even in Winterfell, his mother had warned him.

"Not here," he said. The wildling opened her mouth, no doubt to protest, so he hurriedly continued. "Just follow me." Still, she frowned. "Please," he added, forcing the word out between clenched teeth. The wildling nodded. She spoke no more as he led her to his room.

After closing the door behind them, and sliding in the bolt for good measure, Robb turned his attention to the dying fire. The room was already too warm, but being alone with her made him uncomfortable. Having a task at hand helped ease his nerves.

Nyssa remained by the door. She took in the young-lord's room. It was far larger than her own. There was too much space for one person. The tent she'd shared with Illa was one fourth the size of this lordling's chamber. Without asking permission, she strode across the room and pushed open the window. Below in the courtyard, two of the direwolves sat perfectly still, with their eyes raised to the fallen child's room. Nyssa backed away from the window. She suspected that the wolves knew far more than any of them did.

"Your mother said something about lions," Nyssa said, facing the boy-lord, who still knelt by the hearth. She was surprised he even knew how to build a fire. "What did she mean?"

"A lion is the sigil of House Lannister," Robb said.

"Sigils." She pursed her lips. The red-headed lady had used that word as well. "Those are the pictures you put on your little flags, right?"

"They're banners, not _flags_."

"Small difference," she said, shrugging. Robb let it go. Why bother explaining anything to her? She'd never understand.

"We think it was one of the Lannisters who pushed Bran and sent an assassin to...finish him off."It was difficult to say the words aloud. When he thought of Bran falling, and falling, Robb felt as if he were falling himself.

"Why?" Nyssa asked, cocking her head to the side.

The fire roared to life. With nothing left to do, Robb turned to her. For once, the wildling didn't look back at him with that haughty and hostile expression he loathed so. Instead, her dark eyes searched his face, as if she could read the answers written there.

"I don't know," he admitted.

"You don't know?" she snapped. "These lions, they've twice tried to kill your brother and you don't even know why? Do you know anything, boy?"

"Don't call me that."

"It's what you are," Nyssa said, folding her arms over her chest. "No wonder your mother wanted me here. You couldn't keep your brother safe from so much as a-"

She'd gone too far. She'd said what Robb had thought since first learning of Bran's fall, but he wouldn't take the words coming from her, of all people. He stepped towards her, not sure what he meant to do. The wildling held her ground,

"Are you going to hit me, boy?" she said. More than anything he wanted to, but she was a girl. _No, she isn't, _the rage in him hissed, _she's nothing, she's worse than nothing, she's a wildling. _Then, his eyes were drawn to the bruises, violet imprints of a man's hands, round her neck. The sight made him sick. No, he would not hit her.

Robb turned his back to her again and stared at the fire until he'd calmed himself enough to speak.

"The only explanation I have for why anyone would wish Bran dead, is that he must have seen something he was not meant to," he said, his words measured. "What he did see, I don't know, and neither does Bran. He claims to remember nothing."

Silence took hold of the room. The only sounds were the crackling of the fire and the wildling woman's deep, steady breaths. Nyssa moved back to the window. Thankfully, the wolves were gone. She leaned her body over the sill, looked down, and imagined what it would be like to fall from here. Suddenly, her eyelids grew heavy. She could not keep them open, and when they closed, she _was_ falling. Nyssa could hear the wind rushing past her, louder than thunder. She flung out her hands, to catch hold of something, anything, but her fingers grasped only air. The three-eyed crow landed on her back. It's weight pushed her down. _Get off, _she longed to scream, but the wind forced the words back down her throat.

Then it stopped. When Nyssa opened her eyes, the boy-lord was at her side. She looked down at his hand on her arm and realized she was trembling. Part of her felt she was still falling.

Robb wasn't certain what had just happened to the wildling. He'd turned around, prepared to tell her to leave if she had no further questions, and seen her hanging out of the window, prepared to topple over the ledge.

"What in seven hells were you doing?" he asked. Nyssa shook off his hand. She feared if she opened her mouth to speak, she'd vomit instead.

"Nothing," she managed to say. "It's warm in here."

Robb looked at her skeptically. Her face was white as snow, drained of blood. Her hands still shook, though the rest of her was still as stone. She stood tall and straight, with her lips pressed in a stern, stubborn line, but her black eyes were full of fear. _What scares a wildling? _he wondered. His mother thought she had the sight. Robb had scoffed at the suggestion, but looking at the girl now, he almost believed. Almost.

Nyssa darted past him, but she stopped at the door. Her heart raced, as if she'd just been running for her life, _or falling to my death_. Her hands stopped shaking. She stared so hard at the grain patterns in the oak door that they appeared to move, like a writhing knot of snakes. _Falling and falling and falling. _For once, she understood the message the gods had sent her. They'd put her into the fallen child's body and she'd felt the boy's fear, mixed up with her own. But now that the fear had faded, a freezing anger swept through her.

"No lions are going to get their claws in your brother," Nyssa declared. "Not while I'm here."

Then she left, but her parting words echoed in Robb's ears. He did not doubt that she'd meant what she'd said, though he didn't understand her motives. It struck him that he knew as little about her world as she knew of his. Perhaps magic did still exist over the Wall. Perhaps...

He shook his head to clear such absurd ideas from his mind. Magic lived on only in fairy tales.

* * *

Since the fallen child had woken, Nyssa abandoned her post only to relieve herself or to snatch a meal from the kitchen. The bed in her new room remained un-slept in. She dozed with her head between her knees whenever Alfwald stood guard. He wasn't as old, or as young, as the others, and he had enough scars to vouch for his worth as a soldier.

_I'm not doing this for you, _she thought at the three-eyed crow, whenever he visited her dreams. Nyssa still intended to leave the castle as soon as the red-headed lady returned with the gold. Until that time, however, she'd decided to give herself wholly to the task of protecting the fallen child from the lions.

"Funny you call us the savages," she'd said to the boy-lord earlier that morning, as he'd left his brother's room. "But I never met a man or woman on the other side of the Wall who'd harm a child."He'd said nothing in return.

She knew nothing about these lions, or Lannisters as the boy-lord called them, but they took on the appearance of the Frozenriver people in her mind's eye. They had the same teeth, filed to sharp points and meant for breaking human flesh, but they wore the strange, metal suits of the southerners instead of heavy furs.

Summer, the boy's direwolf, scratched at the door. Nyssa stayed where she was. The guard could let out the beast. Her body tensed as the man opened the door. Summer trotted past him, across the hall to where the wildling stood. She backed up against the wall and glared down at the pup. _Not a pup for much longer. _Summer nipped at her skirts. At first, she thought the beast meant to bite her, but its teeth caught only the fabric.

"Away," she snapped, swatting at the pup's shaggy head. Summer pushed his snout against her legs. She realized that the pup was trying to herd her towards the fallen child's room. Though Nyssa did not want to go, the wolf was persistent.

"Fine," she said, raising her hands in defeat. "I'll go. You understand?"

Summer turned around and trotted back to the the guard stepped forward, to bar Nyssa's way, the wolf snapped at him and he retreated.

Summer went straight to his master. The wolf curled up atop the boy's crippled legs, folded his paws under his chin, and watched her, as did the fallen child.

"Some trick you've taught him," she said, glancing warily at the direwolf.

"Do you always stand outside?" Bran asked.

"Yes."

"But you never come in."

"Your brother doesn't like me to." It was one order Nyssa preferred to obey. She'd already become too involved. She could still feel the boy's fear, feel them both falling, and it was for that reason that she wanted to protect him, but also the reason she feared being too near him.

"You won't hurt me," Bran said.

"I might."

"No." The boy shook his head. "You said so yourself. Does the crow talk to you, too?"

"No," she said. It wasn't a lie. The three-eyed crow never spoke to her. "What does he say to you?"

"He made me wake up." Bran scowled at his legs. He could see them, but he could not feel them. "I wish he hadn't."

Nyssa knew not what to say, but she felt his pain as sharply as if it were her own. Had the three-eyed crow brought her here? Had the Child? Had Greta? Perhaps they were all one in the same. She and the child weren't so different. Fate had brought them here, in whatever form, but neither of them had arrived willingly to this moment. _I might as well be a cripple_, she thought. She'd run from the wolves, only to run to them.

"What did the crow mean? How are you supposed to help me?"

"I don't know," Nyssa admitted.

"Why are there always guards outside?"

"To keep the lions out."

"What?" Bran pushed his hair back from his eyes. He didn't look like anything other than a poor, crippled lordling now. Still, Nyssa kept her guard raised.

"Your mother, your brother, they think the lions want to kill you."

"The Lannisters?" Bran asked.

"Yes, them."

The boy took the news well, but Nyssa noticed him curl his fingers into the wolf's fur.

"I don't remember anything," Bran said, frustrated. "The crow said it was better if I didn't yet. Why?"

"You're asking the wrong person," Nyssa said.

"But you have the sight. That's what the servants say."

"Yeah, well, don't believe everything you hear. The gods don't reveal much to me, lordling." She called him lordling, not mockingly, but with a note of affection. The boy had many questions. More than his mother and certainly more than his grunting, glowering brother. At her words, his expression wilted to disappointment.

"My mother had the sight," Nyssa went on. Bran peaked up at her over the furs. His eyes were round as the moon at its fullest. "When she was very young, the gods showed her how she'd die."

"That's terrible," Bran said.

"Yes, it was."

"What happened to her?"

"She died just as they said she would." As her birthing time had drawn near, Nyssa's mother had told her that she would not survive the trial to come. _I've always known this girl would be the death of me, _she remembered her mother say, _and I've always known that I'd bring her into the world any way. _

Nyssa didn't know why she was telling the boy any of this.

"I should leave," she said, backing away from the bed.

"Please don't," Bran said. "I won't ask anymore questions."

Nyssa did not believe him. Nor could she say no to the boy. There was something about him that reminded her of home. A spark of magic in his eyes, so much like the one that had gleamed in her own mother's eyes. She sat in the straight-backed chair by his bed. Bran turned his head to look at her, with his cheek pressed to the pillow. They stared at one another for a minute. _What now? _Nyssa wondered. It'd been many years since she'd entertained any children.

"Do you know any stories?" Bran asked.

"A few."

"Will you tell me one?" He'd heard all of Old Nan's too many times.

Nyssa could only remember Illa's favorite story. She hadn't told it for a long time, but the words came back to her now as though not a day had passed. The fallen child clung to her every word.


	11. Chapter 11

**"This was something different and deadlier: a dance where the smallest misstep meant death."**

"Maester Luwin says the Imp's coming back to Winterfell," Bran said. A breakfast tray was laid across his legs. He'd barely touched his food.

"Eat," Robb told him. "And I'll tell you if what he says is true."

"Maester Luwin never lies," Bran said. Still, to please his brother, he speared a sausage on his fork and shoved it whole into his mouth. _He's so skinny, _Robb thought. The boy had lost a great deal of weight while he'd slept. A month ago, he'd been a plump-faced, rosy-cheeked boy. Now he was sallow and frail. Robb pulled back the curtains to allow some light into the room.

"Lord Tyrion will arrive tomorrow," he said. "He rides with three brothers of the Watch."

"Uncle Benjen?" Bran asked hopefully.

"No."

"What about-?"

"Jon is not with them either."

"Do you think he's taken the Black yet?"

Robb sat on the edge of the bed and plucked up one of Bran's sausages. "I bet so," he said, his mouth full.

"He promised I could come and visit." Bran looked glumly to his legs. "It won't happen now, will it?"

"Not for while," Robb admitted. "But someday we'll go, when you're better."

"I'm not going to get better," Bran snapped. He glared up at his brother. Robb didn't know what to tell him. More than ever, he wished their mother was here.

He stood, ruffled Bran's hair, and said, "I'll find a way to get you to the Wall. I promise." Then he strode to the door. There was much to do and not nearly enough time to do it.

"Tell Nyssa to come in," Bran called after him.

"What do the two of you talk about?" Robb asked, turning back around. He'd given up on keeping the wildling out of Bran's room. Summer had nearly bitten off one of the guard's hands for trying to stop her. _And if Summer trusts her, _Robb grudgingly thought, _I might as well._

"She tells me stories," Bran said. "They're a lot better than Old Nan's."

Robb didn't doubt that they were. Bran had always loved the scary stories best, the ones about old magic beyond the Wall.

"Don't let Old Nan hear you say that," he said, smiling. "It would kill her."Bran smiled back at him and, as he left the room, Robb tucked that smile safely away, to return to later on in the day when his burdens became too heavy.

"He wants you," Robb said to the wildling. Nyssa nodded and slipped into the room.

For the rest of the day, he found himself wondering what stories she was telling his brother. _Filling his head with nonsense, no doubt. _But he couldn't deny that a part of him was just as curious as Bran.

* * *

Nyssa was in the midst of telling the fallen child one of Greta's tales, about Odell the Old, who fell asleep under a weirwood for a hundred years. She was coming to the part where Odell finally wakes, only to find all of his family long dead, when Theon Greyjoy marched into the room.

"The Imp's here," he said, by way of announcing himself. "You're to greet him with Robb."

"I want to hear the end," Bran said. His eyes remained on Nyssa.

"You have to dress," Theon said. "You can listen to the wildling's horse shit later."

"She has a name." Bran finally looked ay his father's ward. He did not like Greyjoy and never had.

Theon smirked at the wildling. She wasn't bad to look at, but he dared not try anything. Robb had warned him that she was under Lady Stark's protection.

"Robb wants to see you, too," he told her.

"What for?" Nyssa demanded.

"Does it matter? When your lord summons, you go."

"He's not my lord."

"While you're in Winterfell, he is," Theon said, and then turned his attention back to Bran. "And he's yours too. So you'd both better get a move on."

"Who's the Imp?" Nyssa asked. She stayed seated, in no hurry to run to the boy-lord's summons.

"Tyrion Lannister," Bran said.

"One of the lions?" Her eyes narrowed. She turned them to Theon. "And you're just letting him stroll right in?"

"It's not my decision," Theon said. He was no more thrilled about their guest than the wildling appeared to be. "Robb decides who-"

Nyssa was not listening to him anymore. She rose quickly and strode to the door. Someone had to talk some sense into the boy-lord and no one else in this castle had the guts to do it.

"What happened to Odell?" Bran said.

She didn't answer. The door slammed behind her.

"What's with her?" Theon asked.

"She thinks Robb's an idiot," Bran said with a shrug. Theon threw back his head and laughed.

* * *

Robb was dressing when he heard raised voices in the hall. He froze, bent over with his trousers puddled around his feet, and looked to the door.

"You can't-"he heard the guard say. Then the door flung open and the wildling woman blazed through. The guard followed after her.

"Sorry, my lord," he said. "She wouldn't-"

"Out!" Robb said. He stood straight, remembered he was only in his short linens, and quickly stooped back down to yank up his trousers. The guard retreated, but the wildling did not. Her dark eyes were fixed intently on his face. She seemed completely oblivious to his state of undress.

"You too," he said, turning his back to her and rummaging in the wardrobe for a tunic. Any one would suffice.

"You _summoned_ me," she said. "Now you want me to go?"

"I'm not decent," he snapped. His hands fumbled over the clothes. Nyssa could not see his face, but the back of his neck was flushed bright red.

"What's that supposed to mean, you're not decent?" she asked. Robb found a tunic and pulled it over his head.

"Never mind," he muttered, turning back around. He tried to will the flush from his cheeks. It wasn't as if he'd never been naked in front of a woman, but she was different from the whores in Winter Town. Her gaze made him feel vulnerable in a way he was not accustomed to.

"You can't let the lion in," Nyssa said. Robb bristled at being told what he couldn't do, but he hadn't summoned her for a fight.

"I _can't_ turn him away," he said, combing his fingers through his hair to make the curls lie flat. "You don't understand."

"Then explain."

Robb sighed. His hands fell to his sides. In his fancy clothes, Nyssa thought he looked more like a boy than ever. A boy playing dress up.

"The Lannisters have more power and more gold than any other family in the Seven Kingdoms," he said. "To turn one of them away would be the highest of insults and the last thing we won't to do is raise their suspicions."

"Why?"

"Because they don't know that we suspect their involvement in Bran's accident."

"So, you have to treat the lions as guests to keep them from suspecting that you suspect them," she said slowly. Her brow furrowed. "That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard."

Robb prepared to argue, opened his mouth, but closed it upon realizing that, for once, he agreed with the wildling.

"It's just how it is," he said instead. She didn't appear satisfied by his response, but he had not the time nor the energy to explain further. He moved to his bed, slid the wildling's knife out from under the pillow, and held it out to her. Nyssa longed to take it from him, to hold the walrus-bone hilt again, but she stood back, hesitant and distrustful.

"I want you to have this while Lord Tyrion is here," Robb said. When she still did not move, he urged, "Go on, take it."

Nyssa took the knife. It was as if a missing limb had been returned to her. She ran her fingers over the notches in the hilt.

"You promised my mother you'd protect Bran," Robb said. His mother trusted the wildling. As did the Bran. As did the wolves. "Don't leave his side. Not even for a moment. Do you understand?"

Nyssa tucked the knife up her sleeve. The steel was cold against her skin. She understood.

* * *

Nyssa stood at the foot of the dais. The simpleton towered beside her.

"Hodor, Hodor," the half-giant muttered, wringing his mammoth hands together. His eyes darted around the great hall like a frightened doe's. Nyssa paid him no attention. She looked to the fallen child, where he sat by his brother on the raised platform. _So that's what it means to be a lord, _she thought. _You get to sit above everyone else in uncomfortable chairs._ She'd much rather stand where she was and suspected the fallen child would as well. He caught her eye for a moment, but then the groaning of the great, wooden doors opening drew his attention to the end of the hall.

Nyssa waited for the lion to enter. She curled her hand around the hilt of the knife, hidden up her sleeve, and imagined what the southern beast would look like. Did they sharpen their nails into claws? Did they wear lion skulls for helms? She could not see around the half-giant, so she stepped forward, out of line. When she saw the lion, she laughed. A stunted, ugly dwarf tottered across the long hall. Emblazoned on his leather tunic, in glittering, gold thread, was the lion she'd expected.

The half-man's crooked step did not falter, though her outburst of laughter carried to every corner of the deathly silent room. He didn't so much as look at her. Not with his black pig-eye or his bulbous emerald one. The boy-lord, however, glared daggers at her, while his brother grinned.

The dwarf stopped at the foot of the dais. If Nyssa were to reach out her arm, she could just touch his humped shoulder.

"I must say, I expected the Lady Catelyn would be here," the dwarf said. His voice did not match his misshapen form. The words rolled from his ugly mouth like fine folds of silk.

"She regrets that she could not greet you, my lord," Robb said stiffly. "But she has worn herself sick from looking after my brother."

"I pray she recovers quickly." The dwarf looked to Bran. "I've a gift for you, boy. Do you like to ride?"

"I did," the boy said. "But I can't anymore."

The half-man smiled. He reached for something inside of his cloak. When he did, Nyssa's fingers curled once more around the walrus-bone hilt. But instead of a sword, the half-man drew a roll of parchment.

"Give that to your saddler," he said, handing the parchment over to one of the guards. "I designed it specially after my own."

Robb inspected the saddle plans for a moment, as if he thought the parchment might somehow be poisoned, but it seemed harmless enough.

"Thank you, Lord Tyrion," he said, then cast a meaningful glance at Bran.

"Yes, thank you," the boy said, somewhat more enthusiastically.

"Think nothing of it," the dwarf said.

"Your old room has been made ready," Robb said. He looked to the three men, dressed all in black rags, lingering behind the half-man. "And, of course, any man from the Night's Watch is welcome here as well."

"Spoken like a true lord," the dwarf said, a gleam in his black, pig-eye.

Nyssa did not watch the little lion and his metal-suited guards stride back across the hall, as did everyone else. Instead, she looked up at the boy-lord. She heard the great, wooden doors close behind the half-man, and only then did the boy-lord relinquish his grip on the arms of his chair.

The ways of the southerners were absurd. They spoke in honey-coated lies to one another. But Nyssa supposed, stupid as their rules were, that the boy-lord had been brave in the strange manner of his people.


	12. Chapter 12

**"Why is it that when one man builds a wall, the next man immediately needs to know what's on the other side?"**

The dwarf was the last to arrive to supper. He dawdled to the empty seat on Robb's left side and across the table from Bran. The three Crows came next. Then a dozen vacant chairs. Nyssa stood against the wall behind the fallen child. Four other of the boy-lord's guards were posted around the room, as well as two of the dwarf's men, in blood-red cloaks.

"I hope you didn't wait for me," Tyrion said, as he climbed into his chair. They had waited. Nyssa could hear Bran's stomach growling clear across the hall. Summer and Grey Wind whimpered under the table. Now and again, Grey Wind tried to snatch meat from Robb's plate, but the boy-lord managed to stop the beast each time with just a glance.

Once Tyrion's goblet had been generously filled, the men cut into their food and the sound of knives scraping against plates filled the room. The Crows ate as though they might never eat again. They tore chicken from the bone and licked their greasy lips, much as she'd seen the direwolves do. Nyssa noticed that the boy-lord, however, hadn't so much as picked up his silverware.

"Your father lent me a book," Tyrion said. "I went to return it, but was told that the library had been closed off."

"There was a fire," Robb said.

"I hope no one was hurt."

"They weren't." The boy-lord's voice was stiff and guarded.

"Do you know what caused it?" the dwarf pressed on. He looked curiously at Robb over the rim of his cup.

"A candle, most like," Robb said. _Liar, _Nyssa thought. She could tell by the way he'd glanced down at his plate when he'd answered.

"Lots of kindlin' in a library," one of the Crows said. Yoren was his name.

"Yes, I suppose there is." Tyrion took a sip of wine. "A shame, though. You had many fine books."

"Has Jon taken the black yet?" Bran asked.

"Not when we left," Yoren answered. "But I 'spect he has by now."

"And how is our Uncle Benjen?" Robb asked. At the question, all three Crows stopped their chewing. Yoren wiped his hands on his black leathers. When he looked back at the Stark boys, his expression was grim.

"I guess you ought to know," he said.

"Know what?" Bran asked. He leaned forward over the table to better see the Crows.

"Your uncle led a party over the Wall. They were 'sposed to be back near a month ago and I've ne'er known Benjen Stark to be late," Yoren said.

"He's likely dead," another Crow added. "I'm sorry lads, but-"

"He isn't dead." Robb glared at the Crow, as if daring him to say more.

"Meant no offense, my lord," Yoren said.

Silence fell over the table. The Crows returned to eating. Yoren and the dwarf exchanged an occasional handful of words, but for the rest of supper neither Robb nor Bran spoke.

* * *

Nyssa knew the boy was not asleep. She could hear him shifting his head on the pillow. Sitting in her chair by the door, she held up her knife to catch the light of the low fire. The steel gleamed red. She pressed her thumb against the sharp point of the blade until a bead of blood blossomed on her fingertip.

"I didn't know you had Crow for an uncle," she said.

"He's First Ranger." Bran's voice came small and fragile out of the shadows . She couldn't see him, but his wolf's golden eyes burned in the dark."We built the Wall, you know. The Starks, I mean. I'm named after Bran the Builder."

"Who's he?"

"The founder of our House. He raised the Wall and gifted it to the Night's Watch."

"Giants built the Wall," Nyssa said. "No man ever could."

"Have you seen in it?"

"No," she admitted. Once, Alger had. No more than eight years old, and already determined to go south, he'd run away from home and made it all the way to the Wall. "I didn't know how to climb it," he'd admitted upon returning. "But you should have seen it, Nys. You can't even imagine."She'd never so much as tried to imagine it, though.

"Do you think my uncle's dead?" the boy asked. Nyssa had to strain to hear him. He spoke no louder than a whisper now.

"I don't know," she lied. More than likely, what the Crow had said at supper was true. _Southerners can't survive in our world_. "Do you want to hear a story?" she asked.

"No," Bran said. He stopped shifting, but she suspected he was still awake.

It wasn't until the moon was high in the sky that his breathing evened. Nyssa waited a few minutes more, to be certain that the boy was indeed sleeping, before sliding her knife back up her sleeve and tip-toeing through the dark to the door.

* * *

The lion was where she'd expected him to be, in the ruins of Winterfell's library. Nyssa slipped through the charred, oak door, like a shadow, and kept close to the wall. She liked this room least of all those in the castle. The smell of smoke hung heavy in the air. In the middle of the room, there was a pile of priceless and rare books, all of them scorched beyond saving. Watching the dwarf sort through them, by the light of an oil lamp at his feet, she thought about the mountain of charred bodies back home.

The dwarf stopped what he was doing and turned around. The lamp cast dancing shadows over his gruesome face, which looked to have been carved from wood by a child's clumsy hands. He did not seem startled to find her lurking behind him. Tyrion had noticed the wildling immediately upon entering the great hall. As had the brothers of the Watch. "Don't know what that boy's thinking,"Yoren had said, shaking his head. "S'bad enough they've got direwolves running loose all over the place."Tyrion had merely shrugged and taken a hearty gulp of wine, but he was even more curious than his traveling companion. Much had changed since the last time he'd been here.

"Tell me," he said, "how did a wildling end up in Winterfell?"

"By accident," Nyssa said. She circled the little man, like a beast stalking potential prey. Yet her gaze was nowhere near as hostile as Robb Stark's had been throughout supper. Her dark eyes were cool and calculating.

"They told me you were a lion," she said.

"Disappointed?" Tyrion grinned and gestured at his ill-made body.

"Yes," Nyssa said, coming to a stop by the window. The glass panes had all been melted by the fire. A cold wind kissed the back of her neck. The boy-lord hated and feared this half-man. But to her the Lannister didn't seem much of a threat. She gripped her knife. One stroke and the dwarf would be dead.

"You lived over the Wall?" Tyrion said. She nodded. "Is it true, then, what the men of the Night's Watch say? Are there monsters on the other side? Grumpkins, giants, white walkers?"

At the mention of the white walkers, Nyssa shivered.

"I've heard things about them," she said. "Never seen any of them, though."

The dwarf's lopsided mouth twisted into a thoughtful scowl. _Kill him, _she thought, but still did not move.

"And Mance Rayder, they say more of your kind join him every day," Tyrion said.

"They do." Of this she was certain.

"Did he send you here to spy on us southerners?" the dwarf teased.

_ I'm not interested in your war. _How many times had she told Bone Dust that? The land is shifting, the Child had said. _But I want nothing to do with it._ Nyssa loosened her grip on the knife hilt. She wasn't anyone's spy, nor was she anyone's soldier. Not Mance Rayder's, not the boy-lord's, not the three-eyed Crow's.

"I don't give a damn about Rayder," she said, "and I don't give a damn about you southerners, either."

Nyssa did not want to be in the ruined library anymore. Without any further words, she swept out of the room, but the smell of smoke lingered in her hair and on her clothes.

* * *

Robb threw back the heavy furs and swung his legs over the side of the bed. He could not sleep. He went to the window and stared out at the impenetrable darkness of the wolfswood, imagining his uncle lost in an even darker forest hundreds of leagues away. _He isn't dead, _Robb told himself, yet again.

A shard of moonlight fell over the saddle plans laid out on the table. Robb had gone over them, though he knew nothing about how to make a saddle. Nor did he know what to make of the Imp's gift. Lord Tyrion was to depart at first light with the brothers of the Night's Watch. Robb wished he could speed the night.

Giving up on any hope of sleep, he decided to check on Bran, but before he reached his brother's room, he stopped at the sound of soft footsteps closing in on him from behind. As he turned, he reached for his sword, only to remember he'd left it behind. _Idiot,_ he cursed himself. It was only the wildling, though, not another assassin in the night.

"I thought I told you not to leave Bran's side," Robb said, as she approached him. Nyssa came to a halt less than a foot away from the boy-lord. She held out her knife to him. Robb looked at it, his eyebrows raised in a silent question.

"The dwarf's not a problem," she said. Robb's gut twisted.

"Tell me you didn't kill him," he said. There was no blood on the knife or on her hands. But there were ways of killing a man without shedding any blood. The wildling snorted.

"I understand more than you think I do," she said. "If I killed this lion, more would come. But the little lion, he won't hurt your brother."

"How do you know?"

Nyssa shrugged. "He's no killer." She was still holding out the knife to Robb. "Go on, take it back. I won't need it for the dwarf."

Robb didn't move. He stared at her, unsure of her motives. Why would she hand over the knife willingly, after so many weeks of demanding he return it to her? Whoever she was, why ever she was here, the wildling confused him to no end. If she wanted to, she could kill him now. He had no weapon. Grey Wind was not with him. Torchlight shimmered on the blade between them.

"No," Robb said, making up his mind. "It's yours."

"That's risky, _my lord_," she said. "I'm a wildling, remember? We're not to be trusted with weapons."

"I trust you," he said. The words tasted strange on his tongue, but they were not untrue. She'd been in Winterfell for a month now. If she'd meant to harm them, she would have. "But make no mistake, that doesn't mean I like you," he added hurriedly.

Nyssa cared not if the boy-lord liked or trusted her, but she was glad he didn't want the knife back. She made to step around him and continue on to the fallen child's room.

"What are the notches for?" Robb asked. Nyssa paused with her back to him. She said nothing for a long time. He thought she wouldn't answer and was surprised when, at last, she did.

"One for every man my father killed," Nyssa said, stroking the notches in the walrus bone. She glanced over her shoulder at the boy-lord. "It was his knife."

"Where is he now?"

"Dead," she said. There was no sorrow in her voice. Her dark eyes gave nothing away. Robb watched her go until she disappeared down the long, shadowy corridor. A thousand more questions withered, unanswered, in his breast.


	13. Chapter 13

**"In the songs all knights are gallant, all maids are beautiful, and the sun is always shining."**

Nyssa and the boy watched the saddler lower strips of cowhide, which were to be cut into flaps, girths, and stirrups, into a barrel of lime water. She'd never seen a saddle being made before.

"Don't you have horses?" Bran asked. Cradled in Hodor's arms, he was at eye level with the wildling.

"A few," she said. "But we don't often ride them as you southerners do. They pull our sleds."As one strip of cowhide went into the barrel, another was fished out. The saddler hung the dripping flap of skin over a wooden beam and, with a blunt knife, began removing the left over hair.

"I wish it'd be finished in time for my nameday," Bran said.

"What's that?"

The boy looked at her as if she'd just asked him what the sky was.

"You don't know what a nameday is?" he said. She shook her head. "It's the day of your birth. There's always a feast with all of your favorite foods and everyone has to give you presents."

Nyssa pursed her lips, pondering what he'd told her. Then she said, "Why would people give you things for being born? It's not like you had much to do with that."

"I don't know," Bran said.

"They should give the presents to the mothers instead."

At the word _mother, _the boy's smile vanished. He doubted his own mother would make it home in time for his nameday, three days hence. His father would not be at the celebration either. Nor his sisters. Nor Jon. Suddenly, he did not care much about the celebrations and presents to come. He didn't even care about the saddle.

"I want to go inside," he said.

"Hodor?" the giant said, looking down at the little lord.

"Inside," Bran repeated. Hodor nodded his great-sized head and turned towards the castle. The giant's stride was long. It took them no time at all to cross the yard.

Nyssa stayed behind. She turned her attention back to the saddler. The lordling never spoke of his family. In his silence, though, it was evident how much he missed them. Since the dwarf had come and gone, the boy had more sullen than ever.

She thought these namedays foolish, but it was important to the fallen child for reasons she couldn't comprehend. While she watched the saddler work, she tried to think of a present she could give to the boy. What did little lordlings want? The answer came to her easily enough. _He wants his family. _But Nyssa could not bring them back to him anymore than she could raise her own from the dead.

* * *

Nyssa sat in the shade of the heart tree. Five wooden dolls, freshly painted, were lined up beside her on the dewy grass. Their faces were crudely cut and lifeless. She frowned down at them. Whittling had never been one of her talents, but it was too late to start over. The lordling's nameday was tomorrow.

The largest of the figurines was no taller than the length of her hand and the smallest only the height of her pinky finger. Her eyes moved down the row and she thought each of their names. _Eddard, Catelyn, Jon, Sansa, Arya._ Alfwald had described each missing member of the lordling's family as best he could. "Lady Stark and Lady Sansa have the red hair. The others are dark-headed. Little Arya's got cat eyes and something of a horse-like face, but you didn't hear that from me."

Apart from the red-headed lady, Nyssa had never seen any of them and expected she never would. Five weeks she'd been in Winterfell. The fallen child's mother was due to return soon. Her time here was coming to an end. Though she longed to go home, to leave this strange place with its even stranger rules far behind her, she would miss the lordling. _But I can't stay, _she thought, sighing.

She closed her eyes and rested her head against the trunk of the heart tree. It was the only weirwood she'd seen this side of the Wall. Here, in what the southerners called a godswood, there was the faintest trace of old magic, pulsing feebly beneath the white bark of the red-eyed tree.

A twig snapped. Nyssa opened her eyes. The boy-lord's shadow fell over her. He stood with his arms crossed over his chest.

"What are those?" he asked, nodding to the wooden figures.

"A gift for your brother," Nyssa said. "They're supposed to be your family."

Robb crouched for a better look.

"Don't touch them," she said. "The paint hasn't dried."

"You did a fair enough job," he lied. They resembled his family very little. Except for the smallest of them, which had eyes near a perfect match to Arya's.

"Liar," Nyssa snorted. "They're uglier than the dwarf man."

"I was trying to be polite," Robb said.

"Being polite, lying." She shrugged. "It's the same thing."

"You'll be leaving soon, I expect," Robb said, after a minute. "When my mother returns."

"Yes."

"Where will you go?" he asked.

"Home." She did not tell him of her plans to first find Cara and Briar. It was more than he needed to know. Once she left Winterfell, she did not want the wolves to hunt her down again.

"I thought all wildlings wanted to be on this side of the Wall," the boy-lord said. "Your kind are always sneaking over."

She said nothing. Robb's arms fell to his side. He bent down, pried a rock from the earth, and then sent it skipping over the still surface of the pond. He watched the ripples until they were no more.

"Bran will miss you when you go," he said, turning back to her. Robb glanced at the dolls. Though he doubted the wildling would ever openly admit to it, he suspected she would miss Bran as well. She only smiled at the boy and no one else.

"I don't belong here," Nyssa said. "He knows that."

Robb stepped back from the edge of the pond and sat beside her, with the five wooden dolls between them. A breeze whispered by. He watched a blood-red leaf, blown loose from its branch, spiral downwards. It caught in the wildling's thick, dark hair. Her eyes were closed again. Her chest rose and fell, rose and fell. Without thinking his actions through, he reached out to pluck the leaf from her hair. His knuckles brushed against her ear. She did not stir and he wondered if she'd fallen asleep.

But Nyssa was wide awake. It had been many weeks since she'd felt the touch of another person. In that fleeting moment of human contact, her heart burst with home sickness, worse than she'd ever known before.

* * *

Late into the nameday feast, Bran began to nod off in his chair. Rickon was passed out under the table, nestled against his direwolf and Robb was listening to some story of Greyjoy's.

"And then, she put her-"

"Not in front of the boys," Robb said, glancing at his brothers. By now, most of the men were deep into their cups. Laughter and song filled the hall. He looked out at the sea of faces. A few rows down, Alfwald pulled Hild into his lap and planted a sloppy kiss on her cheek. In return, Hild struck him over the head with a jug of wine. Arbor gold splashed to the floor.

Robb gestured for Hodor. "Time for bed," he said to Bran. Droopy-eyed, the boy scowled up at him.

"I don't want to go to bed," he said.

"Too bad," Robb replied. The hall had become too rowdy for a boy of ten. Hodor lifted Bran from his chair, while another of the guards untangled Rickon from Shaggy Dog. After they'd gone, Theon continued with his story, but Robb was no longer interested. He noticed that Bran had left the wildling's present on the table. Four of the wooden dolls remained by his plate, but the figure of their mother was not among them.

Again, he scanned the crowded hall. The wildling was nowhere to be seen. She seemed to have disappeared shortly after the feast began.

"Looking for the girl, aren't you?"

"Who?" Robb snapped his head back to Theon.

"The wildling bitch," he said, smirking.

"No."

Greyjoy's grin grew. "It's not every day you get the opportunity to bed one of her kind. I wouldn't waste it if I were you."

"She's under my mother's guardianship," Robb said. He put down his cup. The hall was too hot, too crowded, and too deafening.

"Admit it, you're curious."

"No," he said again. But he was now thinking of the night he'd seen the wildling naked- beads of bathwater caught between her small breasts, the quiet curve of her hips, and the thatch of black curls veiling her...

Robb rose from his chair too quickly. The hall spun. He steadied himself against the table.

"It's too warm in here," he muttered. As soon as he'd found his bearings, he stepped down from the high table and fought his way across the hall.

* * *

A black cloud, shaped like a crow, roosted in the full moon. Nyssa could not look at it for more than a few minutes at a time. Tonight, the moon was near as bright as the sun. She lay on her back in the dust of the training yard. The song and laughter of men reached her even here. There was no escaping it.

The boy-lord had offered her a place on the far end of the long table. The seats nearest the dais being reserved for the visiting lairds from nearby. "You're just a guest tonight," he'd told her, but she had felt more like an intruder. She did not care for the southerners' songs or understand their jokes. Their ballads rang empty. None of them sang near as sweetly as Illa. None could belt out a bawdier tune than Alger. None could spin histories in the smoke of a bonfire as Greta could, when she used the words of the old magic.

Nyssa hummed one of Illa's favorite songs under her breath, about a woman who fell in love with a weirwood. She could not remember any of the words. When the boy-lord found her, she'd long since given up on the song. The tune was hollow this side of the Wall.

"What're you doing down there?" the boy-lord asked, his words slurred. His cheeks were still flushed from the warmth of the hall.

"Thinking," she said. Nyssa stood and faced him. His eyes were glazed with the drink. She'd tried a sip of their wine and spat it back out. How the southerners could drink so much of the vile, sweet stuff was a mystery to her.

"Thinking about what?" he asked. She didn't answer. Robb sighed. _She rarely does, _he thought, leaning against the fence. Moonlight rippled in her long, dark hair. She appeared more ghost than girl, with her silvery skin and deep-set eyes. As usual, her lips were carved into a stern line.

"Don't you ever smile?" he asked. "Or laugh? Or..." He faltered for a moment. She always looked angry, yet sad. "Aren't you ever happy?"

Happiness was a dream, or perhaps a memory.

"Only fools and children are happy," Nyssa said. And once, she'd been a fool, but no longer. Song and laughter had died with Illa.

The boy-lord stepped towards her. His expression was very serious.

"And you think I'm a fool?" he said.

"No, you're a child."

"I'm as old as you," he argued.

"We grow up faster over the Wall," she said. Robb now stood mere inches from her.

"I'm not a child," he said. Then, as if to prove it, he kissed her. The wildling's lips were cold as snow.

Nyssa stood motionless, caught off guard, while his arms circled around her waist. His palms pressed hot against the small of her back, while her own hands hung limp at her sides. The boy-lord's mouth moved hungrily over hers. When he caught her bottom lip gently between his teeth, an unbidden cry caught in the back of her throat.

She wrenched free of his embrace and stumbled back a step. The boy-lord reached out to grab hold of her arm, so she would not fall, but Nyssa slapped his hand away.

"Don't," she growled at him. Her heart pounded in her chest. Off in the distance, the direwolves struck up a chorus to the moon.

"I'm sorry," Robb said, looking down at his feet. "I should not have-"

Nyssa did not want to hear his apologies. "I should return to your brother," she said stiffly, and then hurried around him. She did not look back. The warmth of the kiss lingered on her lips.


	14. Chapter 14

**"They've never seen a battle, they've never seen a man die, they know nothing. Their dreams were full of songs and stories, the way hers had been before Joffery cut her father's head off."**

A young mare's birthing time was nigh. Her groaning and neighing was too much for Robb, whose head ached fiercely. He'd woken late into the afternoon, but despite having overslept, he was bone-weary. His legs felt like two slabs of ungainly stone. The heady smell of horse dung unsettled his stomach, already tender from last night's wine.

He held out his open hand to the chestnut colt on the other side of the stall gate. The horse nuzzled his palm.

"How old is he?" Robb asked Brinley, the newly appointed Master of the Horse.

"Just over three years, my lord."

"And you think he's ready to take a rider?"

"A small one, I'd say."

_Perfect for Bran then, _Robb thought. He gave the colt a scratch behind the ears before withdrawing his hand. Bran's saddle was nearly finished. He would only need a horse to go with it, and the colt was young, trainable, gentle natured. "This one will do," Robb said. "Take his measurements and report them to the saddler."

"Yes, my lord," Brinley said.

The birthing mare let lose a shrill whinny, drawing the Master of Horse's attention to her stall. "What're you doing?" Brinley barked at the stable boys. "Cutting the poor girl open?"

Robb hurried from the stable. Usually, he'd stay to watch the foal or filly drop into the world, but he did not have the stomach for it today.

Outside, he leaned against the stable wall, protected from the cold, steel rain by the roof overhang. His boots sunk in the mud. The dogs, having taken shelter in their kennels, whined vainly against the weather.

Thoughts of last night crept to the forefront of his mind. He should not have kissed the wildling. _It was the wine, _he told himself, but he was sober now and his lips still tingled, heat still pooled in his belly. Kissing her had been like kissing one of the statues down in the crypts. She'd been just as cold, just as hard. But when she'd pulled away, her eyes had been bright and her cheeks flushed. "Don't," she'd said. "Don't." The word echoed between his throbbing temples. He closed his eyes and willed the falling rain to drown out the memory. It was no use. Her face was branded against the back of his eyelids. The wildling called him a boy and when he was near her, he felt like one.

Sighing, he opened his eyes once more and stepped out into the pelting rain. Lightning cracked across the pale gray sky. Robb knew what he must do, though he did not want to do it. He trudged across the muddy yard, with his head bowed against the wind and rain, to find the wildling.

* * *

Bran traced the miniscule details of his mother's wooden face. He'd fallen asleep with the crudely made effigy tucked under his arm, even though a boy of ten was too old for such things.

Nyssa sat at the foot of the bed, with her legs tucked under her. The lordling's feet pressed against her knees. Summer was somewhere out in the storm. The wolf was not missed by the wildling.

"Did you have fun at your feast?" she asked. The boy shrugged. He placed his wooden mother on the bedside table and took up the wooden Arya in its place. The doll fit perfectly in the palm of his hand.

"Last year's was better," Bran said, remembering how Arya had stolen Theon's signet ring, how she'd leapt lithely from table to table while Greyjoy chased after her and the guards cheered her on. Bran had laughed so hard he'd nearly made himself sick.

He wondered what his sisters were doing now, in King's Landing, and wished more than anything that he was there with them, as he was supposed to be. It wasn't fair. Arya and Sansa were off in the capital, with their father, while Bran was confined to either his bed or Hodor's arms.

The lordling was bored and restless. Maester Luwin told him that he ought to focus on his studies, to pass the long hours of day, but books held no interest for the little boy. He wanted only to run through the dripping wolfswood with Summer, and to climb the walls of Winterfell without fear, feed the crows that roosted in the broken tower corn kernels from his hand, while he mimicked their cawing speech.

"I haven't dreamt of the three-eyed crow in a long time," he said, looking up at the wildling. "Does he still visit you?"

Nyssa nodded. Yes, the three-eyed crow frequented her nightmares still, though the bird had yet to say a word to her. She hoped it never would. She hoped that once she was gone from this place, the three-eyed crow would leave her be.

Bran opened his mouth, to say more, but just then the door opened. They both turned their heads to see the boy-lord loitering on the threshold. His rain-drenched curls clung to his forehead. Water dripped from the hem of his cloak.

"Can I borrow your wildling for a moment?" he asked, looking only at his brother.

"Ask her," Bran said. But Nyssa had already pushed off of the bed. Her shoulder brushed against the boy-lord's as she passed through the door.

"I'll have her back soon," he said to Bran, before following her out into the corridor. Side by side, with considerate distance between them, they walked in silence. Nyssa expected him to speak once they'd rounded the corner, and the guard fell out of sight, but it was some minutes more before he did.

"I wanted to apologize," Robb blurted, stopping suddenly. "Last night I was out of line. I should not have...I shouldn't..." Pinned under her dark and fathomless eyes, he forgot the words he'd carefully rehearsed on his way to her.

"I meant no offense, my lady," he muttered, feeling like more of a boy than ever before.

Nyssa snorted. "I'm not a lady," she said. "And you have nothing to apologize for. You're not the first drunken lecher I've met."

"Lecher?" Robb said, finally meeting her gaze. The blood rose to his cheeks, but whether from indignation or humiliation he was not sure. "That's a bit harsh."

"You've called me worse," Nyssa said. He grimaced at the truth of her words, but her voice held no resentment. Nothing seemed to phase her. Not his cruel words, not his kiss. He was not accustomed to the way she treated him, as if she were barely aware of his existence, and he found her disdain simultaneously frustrating and provocative.

"Still," Robb went on, his voice somewhat sturdier. "Your under my mother's protection. My behavior last night was...improper."

The wildling's eyes narrowed. He realized too late he'd said the wrong thing.

"I'm not under anyone's _protection_," she snapped. "I look after myself and you, boy, are no threat to me."

"I only-"

Nyssa held up her hands to silence him. "I'm not some silly southern girl, who trembles in fear at little lord's kiss. What's done is done. You've caused me no harm, so hold your apologies."

Robb nodded. After a minute, when he said nothing further, the wildling said, "Is there anything else?"

"No," he muttered. Water trickled from his hair, down his stubbled cheek. His beard was still far from full, but it suited him- sharpened the planes of his face, made him look more like a man than the clean-shaven boy she'd first met. _He kisses like a man, too, _Nyssa admitted to herself, and then quickly pushed back the thought. That certainly was not a road she wished to set foot upon.

Still, he looked so dejected, staring down at the rainwater pooling round his boots, that she took pity on him. The boy-lord carried a burden far too great for him. _As do we all. _

"You're not such a bad kisser," she said, to cheer him.

Robb lifted his head.

"For a boy-lord, that is," she added, grinning. He'd never noticed that she had dimples. Then again, she'd never smiled at him until now. If the keen curve of her lips could even be called a smile.

"Well, you could use some practice," Robb fired back at her.

"That's not a very polite thing to say." Her dimples deepened as her grin widened. "Especially to a _lady._"

Robb rolled his eyes. He turned his back to her and began walking away.

"What? You're not going to escort me back?" the wildling called after him. Her voice its usual teasing lilt. "What if there's a dwarf hiding behind one of the tapestries? You'd let a _lady_ face such peril on her own?"

As Robb rounded the corner, he could not help but smile.

* * *

A raven arrived in the night. Weary, Maester Luwin untied the scroll from the bird's leg and read the hastily scrawled words by the dim light of a flickering candle. As he read, his frown deepened. With the letter clutched in his wrinkled fist, he threw a thread worn robe over his nightclothes, and shuffled out into the corridor.

* * *

As Maester Luwin, bearing dark words delivered by dark wings, hurried to Robb's room, Nyssa woke suddenly from a dream. The three-eyed crow had finally spoken. One word. _War. _

She heard the lordling gasping for air and grasped her way through the bottomless black of night, which had snuck into the room while they slept.

"Bran?" she whispered, blindly reaching until she found him. The lordling trembled in her arms. His soft hair tickled her chin.

"Jory's dead," he said. Nyssa knew not of whom the boy spoke, but was given no time to ask. The fallen child continued. His words were frightfully hollow. "They've hurt Father. They want to kill him dead as well."

"Who does?"

Bran had ceased shaking. His breathing slowed.

"The lions," he said. And as if they could hear the boy through the castle's stone, across miles of forest, the Stark's direwolves began to howl. Their song was not one Nyssa had heard them sing before. _A song of war, _she thought, holding the fallen child close to her chest.

"Do you know what's going to happen to my father?" Bran asked. "Have the gods shown you?"

"I don't know what will happen to any of us," she replied.

She'd thought, having lost Illa, that there was nothing left in the world to be frightened of. Not prophecies or lions, not winter or wars. But listening to the wolves now, and remembering the word which the three-eyed crow had cawed, fear took root in her heart like a swift and merciless disease, spread through the blood.


	15. Chapter 15

**Eserechia: **I just have to say that your review truly brightened my day. Thank you very much. I want to say so much more, but I'm posting this in the wee hours of night at 0% mental energy levels. So short version, I really hope the story continues to please you and would certainly appreciate your comments/criticisms in the future!

Also, thank you to everyone else who's reviewed, favorited, or followed. Happy fanfiction-ing :)

* * *

**"Choosing...it has always hurt. And always will. I know."**

No one was supposed to know that Lady Stark had taken the Imp. Two days after the raven came in the night, however, the news had spread to every man, woman, and child in Winterfell and the town.

"I heard the Kingslayer attacked Lord Stark in the throne room," Hild declared at breakfast.

"Nah," one of the guards said through a mouthful of rashers. "They was outside a brothel."

"What would he be doing at a place like that?" The straw-haired servant wrinkled her nose in disgust.

"He's a man isn't he?" Nyssa said, alone at the other end of the table. All eyes turned to her. She wished she'd kept her damn mouth closed.

"Lord Stark's an honorable man," Hild said. "But I guess you wouldn't know much about that, _wildling._"

"Guess not," Nyssa said, rising from the bench. The boy-lord had summoned her at the crack of dawn. She supposed she'd kept him waiting long enough. Besides, the servants had begun to repeat themselves and she'd grown bored listening to their speculations.

The lions had attacked the wolves. It seemed simple enough. All of the rumors boiled down to one thing: war.

* * *

Upon entering the boy-lord's room, she found him sitting by the window. He looked up from the parchment in his hands, gestured for the guard to leave them and close the door, and then told the wildling to "Sit."

"I'd rather stand," Nyssa said.

"Fine then." Robb set down the parchment. He'd read it over a hundred times, almost hoping that the words would change, but they stayed the same. The ink had dried.

There was a black, leather pouch on the table. He pushed it towards her. Nyssa scooped it up and weighed it in her hand. The purse was heavy for its size. She opened it up and shook a single gold coin out onto the table.

"The amount my mother promised you," Robb said, leaning back in his chair. He watched her put the coin between her teeth and bite down. "I promise you, it's real," he added.

Nyssa sat. She clutched the leather purse in her fist. The gold coin on the table shone bright, like a miniature sun, or the promise of home. _It's real, _she thought, staring, mesmerized, at the coin. Reluctantly, she tore her eyes away from the money.

"The deal was I'd stay until the lady returned," she said. Though it pained her, Nyssa dropped the coin back into he purse, pulled the strings tight, and pushed it across the table once more. Robb pushed it right back.

"I don't know when she'll return," he said.

"Soon, I'd expect," Nyssa said. While there were many variations among the servants' stories, all seemed to agree that Lady Stark meant to bring the Imp to Winterfell. Robb sighed. He wished that was his mother's intention, but knew her far better than the servants did.

"That's what the lions expect, too," he said. The wildling's brow furrowed in thought. She drummed her fingers against the table.

"She won't bring the dwarf here, then," Nyssa said after a minute, her hand falling still. There was so much she didn't know, but it amazed him how quickly she caught on. As long as she'd been in Winterfell, she still couldn't figure out how to unbolt a locked door from the inside, and refused Bran's offers to teach her the _easy way_. Yet, when it came to wolves and lions, she had eerily sharp perceptions.

"So where will she take him?" she asked.

"To her sister, in the Eyrie, I'd guess." Robb recalled the Tully words. _Family. Duty. Honor. _If Catelyn could not return to her sons, she would seek shelter with another of her kin, and every child in the Kingdoms knew the Eyrie was impregnable. It was also many leagues away from Winterfell.

"I don't know how much longer she'll be gone," Robb said. "Perhaps weeks, perhaps months. Either way, I won't force you to stay here. You've fulfilled your half of the bargain."

Still, Nyssa did not take up the purse of gold.

"What about the lions?" she asked, fixing her eyes on the boy-lord. "What are you going to do about them? They attacked your father."

He did not need to answer. She could see clearly in his expression that he hadn't the faintest idea what he should do.

"If it's Bran you're worried about, I'll let no harm come to him," Robb said. And she did not doubt that the boy-lord would die for his brother, as she'd have gladly died for Illa. But who would die for them? Who would protect the boy-lord from the lions, who would protect her from the wolves? She realized that, in a way, she was fortunate compared to the boy-lord. Until recently, he'd had parents to protect him, and she'd lost that shield long ago.

"You have your freedom," Robb said, nodding at the purse of gold."Go on," he urged. "Go back to where you belong."

Too long Cara and Briar had been slaves. _And they are my people, _Nyssa reminded herself. Not these southern lords. She stood, picked up the purse of gold, and tied it to her sash. The coins jangled against her hip. Home was in her reach.

But halfway across the room, without turning around, she said, "Try not to die."

"I'll do my best," the boy-lord said, but she'd already closed the door.

Nyssa drove the boy-lord's face from her mind's eye and replaced it with Cara's and the girl's. _Home, _she thought again, her hand moving to the purse of gold, to assure herself once more that it was real.

* * *

Nyssa did not say goodbye to the lordling. While everyone was at supper in the servant's hall, she slipped into the stables and harnessed a freckled mare. She fumbled with the leather straps, trying to remember how the southerners worked them. The saddlebags were heavy with goods she'd taken from the kitchen. More than enough food for three people. She hoped to reach Barrowtown by tomorrow night. And then..._One step at a time, _Nyssa told herself. Somehow, she would find Cara and the girl.

"You stay still," she told the horse, eyeing it distrustfully. Though she preferred to travel by foot, riding was faster. Gritting her teeth together, she pulled herself into the saddle, but as she was throwing her leg over, a deep-throated growl came from behind her. She whipped her head around and saw a flash of russet fur. Then the wolf was upon her. Startled, the freckled mare reared onto her hind legs, and Nyssa hit the straw-strewn floor.

When she opened her eyes, Summer stood over her. His paws on either side of her head. His golden eyes full of reproach, but she was more concerned by his teeth, inches from her throat.

"Go on," she said, after a few minutes. "Kill me."

Summer snarled, but made no attack. The wolf didn't want to kill her. It wanted to keep her. The beast was a creature of old magic. A servant of the gods. But she would not be ruled by them.

"I'm going home," she told the wolf. She put her palms against its chest and pushed as hard as she could. Summer snapped his jaws, his teeth catching her sleeve, and then retreated. He stalked some three feet away, watching her mount the horse. Nyssa refused to look at the beast. She dug her knees into the mare's ribs and was nearly thrown from the saddle as they sped through the gate.

She pressed her chest against the horse's neck. The wind slapped her cheeks. When she broke free of the castle's stone walls, she dared to glance back. Summer was close behind, flanked by the other two. She urged the mare on, faster and faster.

* * *

The servant cleared away Bran's half-eaten supper, grown cold. Not moment's after the girl had shuffled out the room, Brinley stormed in.

"Apologies, my lords," he said, nodding first to Bran, before turning his eyes to Robb. "I was told I'd find you here. Thought you should know right away."

"What is it?" Robb asked.

"One of the horses, a mare, has gone missing, my lord" Brinley said. "I think one of the boys left the gate open. They're a pack of idiots. Can't do nothing-"

Robb stopped listening to the Master of Horse's tirade against the stable boys. He knew the lads had nothing to do with the missing mare.

"It's alright, Brinley," he sighed. "We've plenty of other horses."

"Begging your pardon, my lord, but I'm sure the gal hasn't gone far. I'll gather a search party and-"

"No," Robb cut him off.

Brinley cast the boy-lord an inquisitive look, muttered, "As you command, my lord." He lingered a moment longer, as if waiting for Robb to either explain himself or change his mind, but when Robb did neither, the Master of Horse heaved a dissatisfied sigh and departed.

As soon as the door closed behind him, Bran spoke. "Nyssa stole the horse, didn't she?"

"Yes," Robb said. He looked out the window, wondering how much progress the wildling had made. She could have the horse. He didn't care.

"How'd you know?" he asked, facing Bran once more. The boy shrugged.

"I just did," he said.

"Thought you'd be more upset. You liked the wildling."

"She'll be back," Bran said, as if it were a matter of fact. Robb looked pityingly at the child. The wildling would not return, of that he was convinced. She hated Winterfell and she'd not once tried to conceal that from any of them.

"She's going home," Robb said. "She's gone, Bran."

"No," the boy said, thrusting out his chin stubbornly. Robb did not want to argue. _Let the boy dream, _he thought, looking away first. He blew out the candle by Bran's bedside and kissed his brother's brow.

"Sleep," he said. "Tomorrow, perhaps your saddle will be ready."

Bran burrowed deeper into the furs. Robb stayed long after the boy had fallen asleep. He stared at the empty chair pushed against the wall, by the door. The chair where the wildling had sat every night for over a month, guarding Bran through the night.

* * *

At noon, the wolves were still with her. Sometimes they raced ahead of her. Sometimes they snapped at the mare's heels and sent the skittish animal back-tracking to Winterfell. Mostly, though, they acted as the wildling's shadow, keeping some feet behind her and howling at her back.

Nyssa glared against the high sun. All through the night and the morning, she'd ignored the direwolves as best she could, but her head ached with the sound of their unbroken cries. _I won't force you to stay, _the boy-lord had said, _you've fulfilled your half of the bargain. _The wolves and the gods disagreed.

Summer nipped at the mare's tail. The horse reared. This time Nyssa could not hold her seat in the saddle. Her thighs were sore and rubbed raw. She fell, watched the mare whip around and flee across the gray-green hills. She let it go. The mare only wanted to return home. Such a longing Nyssa understood.

Summer sat beside her, while his brothers circled nearby.

"You're not going to let me go, are you?" she said. The wolf tilted its shaggy head. She waited, expecting the gods to speak through the beast.

"What do you want from me?" she snapped, rising to her feet. "This isn't my war."

But the wolf had no words, not even a howl now. Nor did the gods. Go south, they'd told her. Find the wolves, they'd said. _Protect the fallen child. _The lordling's pale, heart-shaped face surfaced from the place in her mind where she'd tried to lock it away. She'd never promised the gods anything, but she had given her word to the red-headed lady, to remain with the lordling until her return They hadn't specified on a time limit. _Poor planning on my part, _Nyssa thought.

The purse of gold at her hip seemed even heavier than when she'd set out. Nyssa looked ahead, towards Barrowtown, towards Cara and Briar. She closed her eyes and imagined the three of them together, safe and home. _I'll teach them how to catch seal, _she thought, smiling. _We'll be happy. _

But not yet. She opened her eyes to the spiteful sunlight and looked once more at the lordling's direwolf.

"I'm not going back because of you," she told the beast, before taking the first step back to Winterfell. Summer raced ahead, leading the way, while the other two flanked her sides, as if to ensure she did not try to run again.

Nyssa kept her wary eyes on the beasts as they walked. The purse of gold swayed in time to her steady march. She'd made a pact with the red-headed southerners called her a _wildling, _assumed she had no honor, but she held to her promises and always had.

* * *

The hour was late. Robb yawned over the account books spread over the table. He strained his eyes over the fine-print letters in the flickering candlelight. Wolf song drifted through the window, left open in the hopes that the cool air would help keep him awake. He hadn't heard or seen the wolves all day, now wondered where they'd been, and was glad they were home. He felt safer when they were near, especially now that the wildling was gone.

But Robb did not want to think about her. Too often that day she'd trespassed upon his thoughts. _Where is she now? How will she get home? _It didn't matter. She was no longer his concern and never would be again. He sighed and leaned over the books, but the black ink reminded him too much of the wildling's dark eyes and the letters became just as unreadable. More than once that day, he'd thought he'd felt her watching him from afar, as she often did, but whenever he turned his head, she was not there and something much like regret washed over him.

_She doesn't belong here, _he told himself, concentrating hard on the account books, willing the inky figures to make sense again. He bent so close to them that the tip of his nose brushed the parchment. The wolves fell silent as the moon rose ever higher in the dark, starless heavens. A taciturn quiet gripped the ancient Keep, soon shattered by soft and swift footsteps that the boy-lord couldn't hear. When his door swung open, he lifted his head, expecting the late-night caller to be Maester Luwin with more dark words.

When he saw instead the wildling, Robb blinked, then rubbed his eyes to clear them of fatigued hallucinations. Still, she was there, and he assumed he must've fallen asleep. The wilding was riding for the Wall on a stolen horse. Surely this was a dream. But when she spoke, he knew it was not.

"I'm staying," she declared.

Lost for words, Robb stared at her. He noticed that her dress, the one his mother had given her, was torn at the knees. Her dark hair tumbled over her shoulders in wind-blown knots and dirt streaked her brow. She looked tired, but her voice hinted at nothing of the sort.

"Why?" he managed to say. The wildling glanced at her feet, took a deep breath, and looked back at him.

"I promised your mother to stay with boy until she returned. That was the deal."

"But-"

"But you don't know when that will be," she interrupted. "It doesn't matter. A deal's a deal."She touched the purse, which he'd given her the day before, and hurriedly added, "I'm keeping the money, though."

Robb had a thousand questions, but she'd already turned to leave. He said what came to him in the moment her hand reached for the door.

"I thought you wanted to go home."

The wildling looked back at him over her shoulder and he caught a glimpse of the girl hiding behind the wall of scorn. There was nothing but loneliness in those dark eyes now.

"More than anything," she said, her voice soft and somber as dusk.

"I don't understand you," he confessed.

"No, and you never will."

Then, thinking that she hardly understood herself, Nyssa left him.

Robb abandoned the account books and fell onto the bed. For a long time, he stared at the shadows which had taken the wildling's place. By the time he finally drifted off, the moon had begun to sink below the horizon.

Despite the tumult of his waking thoughts, Robb's sleep was deep and untroubled, as it had not been the night before, when the wildling was gone.


	16. Chapter 16

**"And something was coming up out of the darkness, out of the bowels of the earth..."**

"Summer brought you back," the lordling had said, upon waking and finding the wildling in her usual chair by the door. "I knew he would."

Now, the boy sat propped between Nyssa and the half-giant Hodor, with his crippled legs stretched out over the grass. The sound of steel against steel resonated throughout the yard. The boy-lord and Theon Greyjoy danced around each other. Their swords flashed in the noonday sun.

Greyjoy struggled to hold his ground against Robb's dogged blows. The boy-lord pressed him ever closer to the edge of the training yard.

"Hodor! Hodor!" the half-giant cried out, as the sparring pair came dangerously near.

"It's alright, Hodor," Bran said. "Robb knows what he's doing."

_He does at that, _Nyssa admitted, her eyes following the boy-lord's every move. She'd seen him at his swordplay before, but today there was no _play_ in his swing. He moved in a fury of steel and single-mindedness. He brandished the cumbersome broadsword as if it weighed no more than a feather quill. Soon, Theon lost his footing. He flung out his arms to recover his balance and Robb took the opportunity to knock the ward's sword from his hand. It landed in a cloud of dust near Bran's feet.

"I yei-"Theon began to say. Before he could finish, the boy-lord struck him across the belly with the flat of his blade. Theon hit the ground. Robb, with his sword balanced between his feet, stood over him. Breathing hard, sweat pouring down his rosy cheeks, he smiled down at his brother. Bran clapped and hotted as Theon clambered to his feet and muttered under his breath, "I yielded."

"You lost," Nyssa said, smirking. Greyjoy had a big mouth and far too much pride. It pleased the wildling to see him knocked flat on his ass by the boy-lord.

"What are you laughing at, woman?" Theon snapped.

"You," she said, shrugging. He glared at her for a moment and then spun sharply on his heels, stomped off across the yard. Robb watched him go, wondering if he ought to follow, but decided against it. Greyjoy had always been a sore loser. He needed time to cool his head.

"What about you, then?" Robb asked, turning back to his brother and the wildling. She squinted up at him.

"What about me?"

"Lets see if you're as good as you claim to be." Robb nudged Theon's forgotten sword towards the wildling, but Nyssa did not take up the steel or the challenge.

"I wouldn't want to mess up your pretty face, boy," she said.

"You think my face is pretty?" Robb's lips curled into a teasing grin. The wildling rolled her eyes.

"Prettier than most girls I've met," she said, getting to her feet. She stepped over Theon's sword, told Bran she'd find him after he'd finished his lessons with the old maester, and went off to do whatever it was that she did on her own time. _Slaughtering goats to the god or some such nonsense, _he thought, grimacing at the bloody image.

"I don't want to go to my lessons," Bran complained when Hodor scooped him up.

"You never do," Robb chuckled. "Go on. Maester Luwin will be angry if you keep him waiting too long. You don't want that."

Bran scowled in Hodor's arms as he was carried away. Alone now, Robb swung his sword at the empty air, until his arms began to quiver and he could no longer see for the sweat that stung his eyes.

* * *

The lordling's saddle was finished. For a week, Robb ordered him not to leave the grounds of Winterfell.

"You have to practice," he'd said in repose to the boy's arguments. "It won't be easy."

But it had been easy. Bran spent every moment he could in the stable yard. By the end of the week, he was riding just as well, if not better, than he had before, and Robb had reluctantly agreed to let him go out with the wildling.

Though Bran longed to sprint through the evergreens of the Wolfswood, he kept the wildling's slow pace. She was not near as comfortable on horseback as he. From time to time, he offered her a word of advice. She never responded in words, but he noticed that she'd immediately do as he'd suggested.

_Sit straight, _Nyssa reminded herself. _Legs flat against the horse. Chin up. _

"Loosen the reigns," Bran said. She grimaced as she unfurled her cramped hands. Blood rushed to her shock-white fingertips. Beside her, the lordling looked happier than she'd ever seen him. The fresh air was good for him. He spent far too much time cooped up in the stone castle.

"You can learn to shoot a bow from horseback, you know," she said. None among her tribe were skilled at riding, but the southern traders came they often showed off for the women. Camped on the Bay, they'd have competitions to see who could shoot the farthest. Their preening and flaunting had never much impressed Nyssa, except for one man, who never told his name, with a scar from chin to temple. He never took part in the silly tournaments, but she'd once seen him send an arrow straight through the heart of a Frozenriver man from four hundred yards away.

"That's what Maester Luwin tells me," Bran said. "I'll be like a Dothraki boy."

Nyssa cocked her head to the side. "Dothraki?"The lordling launched into an explanation. Listening to him, she relaxed somewhat in the saddle and let her body sway with the horse's steps. Bran's descriptions of the Dothraki held her mesmerized. She tried to imagine the horse-mounted warriors ravaging across a grassland of eternal summer, but didn't quite believe that such a place could exist.

"Dothraki boys learn how to shoot from horseback when they're only four years old," Bran said. "If they can do it, I'm certain I can t-"

Nyssa held up her hand to silence him. She brought her horse to a halt by gently pulling at the reigns as the lordling had taught her.

"What is it?" Bran asked, stopping as well. Nyssa didn't answer. Her eyes darted between the trees encroaching in on them on all sides. Though she saw only shadows moving among the pines, she suddenly felt they were not alone. The hairs on the back of her neck stood on end. Her hand went to the knife in her boot. As her hand curled around the walrus-bone hilt, four figures glided out from the trees. Bran's young mare pawed nervously at the ground.

They were surrounded. Nyssa's narrowed eyes swept over the four drifters. _Free folk, _she thought, sizing up the man who stood directly before them. She could tell by his clothes and matted, greasy hair that he was not from this side of the Wall. Nor were they friends. Three men and a woman, all of them bearing shoddy, piecemeal weapons crafted from whatever steel they'd been able to get their hands on. A putrid stench rolled off of their bodies, so caked with filth that Nyssa couldn't tell where the dirt ended and their skin began.

"Well, well, what we got here?" The man standing before them spoke first. He was the broadest of the four, but shorter than the woman prowling at their left.

"A little lordling, by the looks of it," the woman said. She stretched out her arm and tore the silver direwolf pin from Bran's leather jerkin. Then she held it up to her companions. "How much you think we can get off o' this?"

"Who cares?" another said. "We need horses, not gold. Lets kill 'em quick."

"If you hurt me," Bran said, "My brother will hunt you down."His voice was small, but unwavering.

Nyssa hissed at him, "Hush, boy," without taking her eyes off of the broad, short man. He was the leader. She could tell by how the other three cast him a nervous, yet eager, glance whenever they spoke.

"Ooo, hear that? He's got a big, bad brother," the woman said, grinning up at Bran.

"He's Robb Stark of Winterfell and he'll-"Bran trailed off at Nyssa's cautionary glance. _The less your enemy knows about you, the less they can hurt you, _her father had taught her. But it was too late.

"Stark," the leader said sharply. He narrowed his ice-blue eyes at the lordling. "You're blood to Benjen Stark."

"Think of what Mance will give us for him?" the woman said.

"Or his lord father," the third man added. The fourth, a pale and freckle faced youth with tawny hair, had yet to speak.

"My father isn't even in-" Bran began, his cheeks flaming a stubborn red. Enough was enough. Nyssa slid her knife from her boot and swung out of the saddle. Her dress caught on the stirrup and she stumbled face first into the lordling's horse. Swearing to burn the garment later on, she regained her balance and faced the leader.

"You can have the horses," she said. Her shoulder touched Bran's leg. "And you can have the silver, but not the boy."

"What're you gonna do?" The woman snorted. Nyssa did not look at her. She didn't even raise her knife. They spoke boldly, but they reeked of fear.

"Lets just go," the tawny haired youth said. "We're too close to the Wall." He peered through the crowded trees, as if he thought someone, or something, had followed them this far south. They'd travelled a great distance and the going mustn't have been easy. Nyssa had heard tale of many men and women who'd tried, and gravely failed, to cross the Wall. The four drifters' ragged clothes hung limp on their skin-and-bone bodies. No doubt they were tired, hungry, and unsure of foot in this foreign wood, far from home. _Yes, just go, _Nyssa silently willed them.

But their leader had caught the scent of gold. Imagined riches gleamed in his icy eyes.

"Osha," he barked at the woman. "Find this Stark pup's brother. Tell him I'm willing to make a fair trade for the boy."

The woman nodded and set out on fleet foot. Nyssa hoped she'd lose herself in the Wolfswood, but knew Osha would likely have no trouble finding her's and Bran's trail. At least now there were only three of them left to contend with.

"Get off the horse, boy," the leader ordered.

"He can't," Nyssa said. "He's a cripple."

Bran glowered down at her. She knew he hated that word, _cripple, _but she paid him no mind. The lordling had to remain horsed. They would not wait for Osha to return. They would not be bartered over like slaves. Nyssa calmly readied herself.

"A cripple," the third man sneered, stepping towards them to inspect the leg braces attached to the boy's saddle. "Reckon it's true, Cyril," he said to the leader. As he reached out to grab hold of Bran's foot, Nyssa drove her blade through the back of the man's neck, just above the top notch of his spine. He fell dead at her feet in an instant.

"Go!" Nyssa cried, elbowing Bran's horse in the ribs. The mare leapt forward. She immediately turned to spring back onto her own horse, but the leader, Cyril, was already upon her. He flung his arm around her neck and squeezed until she couldn't breathe.

"Get the boy," Cyril snapped at the youth, who tore his eyes away from their dead companion. He rode hard after the lordling on Nyssa's horse.

"That was an awful stupid thing to do, lass," Cyril growled in her ear. He twisted her wrist, still tender from its recent break, and she lost hold of her knife. From the corner of her eye, she caught a glimpse of blood glistening on the steel lying in the dirt.

_Ride fast, Bran, _she cast her thought out to the Wolfswood while Cyril bound her hands tight behind her back with a leather belt.

* * *

Night was falling. Darkness skulked between the gnarled and ancient oaks. The tawny-haired youth had not returned. Nor had Osha. Nyssa prayed that their lengthy absence meant Bran had reached Winterfell unharmed. He knew these woods better than them. _He could've beat them there._ Whether the boy-lord would come back for her, however, Nyssa didn't know. She doubted he'd want to risk the lives of his men, even just one of them, for the sake of a _wildling._

Cyril sat cross-legged on the ground mere inches in front of her. He was admiring the hilt of her knife in the dying light of day.

"This is walrus-bone," he said, fixing his ice blue eyes on Nyssa. "I've seen the like before. Where'd you get this?"

Her lips remained rigidly pressed together. She'd tell him nothing, but she could not keep him from reading her appearance. The stubbornness of her posture, the hailstones in her murderous eyes.

"You ain't from here," he said, leaning towards her. His breath smelled of rot. "You're one of us."

"I'm not," she growled. They were not her tribe. Her tribe was dead and gone. Cyril smirked. He traced her jawline with his thumb.

"How did a little girl from the Bay end up safeguarding a spoiled, southern brat?" he asked, cupping her chin in his palm. _The gods, _she thought, wondering where they were. Where was the three-eyed crow? Where was the Child? They'd brought her here. The least they could do was come to her aid now.

"Doesn't matter, I guess." Cyril's hand slid down her neck. "Everyone's going south, if they know what's good for 'em."He trailed his fingers across her sharp, but delicate, collarbone. At the sound of approaching riders, though, he pulled back his hand and stood.

Nyssa held her breath. She dug her fingernails into the bark of the tree at her back. Something stirred in the dark between two tall oaks. She closed her eyes and prayed for the first time since burning Illa's body. Prayed that it was Winterfell's guards who now approached. Or even the gods themselves. But when she opened her eyes, all prayers turned to ash.

Cyril hefted the lordling from his saddle, tossed the child over his broad shoulder, and dumped him beside Nyssa. He did not bind the crippled boy. There was no need.

"I'm sorry," Bran said. "I didn't ride fast enough." His cheek was swollen. A bruise had begun to spread across his milky skin. The sight of it made her sick with rage. She glared daggers at their captors, now exchanging muffled words by the horses. When she killed them, and kill them she would, she decided to leave the tawny-haired youth for last, so that she could take her time, make him suffer.

"Are we going to die?" Bran whispered. His little body pressed against her side. He shivered, from the cold or from fear.

"No," Nyssa said firmly. She did not yet know what she'd do, but of one thing she was absolutely certain. Neither of these filthy drifters would ever lay a hand on the lordling again.


	17. Chapter 17

**TRIGGER WARNING! **There is a sexual violence scene in this chapter.

CLTex- Hi, glad you're enjoying the story! Thanks so much for your faithful reviews :))

Eserechia- I certainly do not mind hearing any repetitive phrases, haha. I do think there will be a longer separation between Robb and Nyssa later on in the story...but I don't want to give too much away! Also, while Nyssa will do plenty of fucking people over without a sword in hand, she'll have a fair amount of opportunity to prove herself as a warrior as well.

* * *

**"The monsters were still there, but the fear was gone."**

"Robb will come," Bran whispered, his teeth chattering and his lips blue from the cold. Nyssa wished she could wrap her arms around his small, shivering body, to warm him. The leather belt, cinched around her wrists, bit into her flesh as she tried to free herself. It was no use, she knew, but there was nothing else she could do, besides scowl at their captors.

Nyssa had no doubts that the boy-lord would come for his brother. _But he won't come fast enough, _she thought, glancing at Cyril. The way the man looked at her curdled her blood. As if she were a slab of meat he'd love nothing more than to devour whole. Osha had been gone for many hours and with each passing second, the drifters' leader grew increasingly impatient and the tawny haired youth more agitated.

"Lets just kill them," the youth said, for what must have been the hundredth time. His eyes were constantly moving between the trees, menacing and twisted in the dark. "Kill them and go."

"Stop belly-aching," Cyril snapped. "There ain't any White Walkers in this wood." He cast a grin at the lordling. "Are there, boy?"

"There aren't White Walkers anywhere," Bran said stubbornly. Cyril released a bark of laughter, devoid of any mirth. He crouched by the boy.

"Is that what they tell you over here?" he said. His ice-blue eyes moved to Nyssa. "What about you, lass? Ever seen one the cold folk?"

She said nothing and turned her head from the smell of his rotten breath, but Cyril grabbed her chin, jerked her head back. He licked his cracked, wind-chapped lips hungrily.

"No, you ain't seen anything," he went on. "If you had, you'd be dead."

Cyril let go of her and stood. Without looking away from her, though, he called out to the tawny haired youth, "Keep an eye on the cripple."

"Where're you going?" the youth asked nervously.

"Might as well have a bit o' fun while we wait."

Nyssa's gut twisted. She knew what _fun_ meant for a man like Cyril.

"No," she growled, glaring up at the loathsome man. Bran's eyes shot back and forth between Nyssa and the drifter. The lordling did not understand, but when Cyril reached for her, the boy threw the upper half of his body across her lap. Laughing, Cyril knocked him aside with ease. As soon as Bran's weight was lifted from her legs, Nyssa began to kick. The drifters' leader stopped laughing as he tried to grab hold of her. With her hands tied, there was little she could do. She tipped her body sideways and, still kicking, hauled her body over the grass like a snake on its belly.

Cyril caught a fistful of her hair. His knuckles brushed against the nape of her neck. He flipped her onto her back and began dragging her off into the deep, dark wood.

"No!" Nyssa screamed. Panic and bile rose to the back of her throat. She clawed uselessly at the earth, she twisted and hissed, but the man was strong and she was bound. Bran's screams mingled with her own, until she could not tell them apart. She watched the boy crawl after them, his useless legs trailing behind him, as the distance grew between them.

"Let her go!" he cried.

"No!" Nyssa screamed. "No! No!"

Bran and the tawny haired youth were swallowed by the dark, but the lordling's howls rang just as loud in her ears.

"If you're as good as you look," Cyril grunted, taking her further and further into the pitch black, "I might just keep you."

* * *

At nightfall, Robb had sent out the search party. Hours later and they had not yet found Bran.

"You shouldn't have sent him out alone with the wildling," Theon said, riding at Robb's side through the gloomy Wolfswood. They had wandered far from the rest of the party. Robb made no reply to his father's ward. He looked straight ahead, not wanting to believe ill of the wildling, yet Theon had only voiced aloud his own silent doubts. Perhaps this had been the woman's plan all along. Earn their trust and then..._What? _Robb asked himself. _Kidnap Bran? _But what could she possibly gain from doing such? He'd already given her enough gold to comfortably live on into her ripe, old age.

Theon came to a sudden halt. "Did you hear that?"

Before Robb could answer, a woman sprang out of a cluster of pines to their left. At first, he thought it was Nyssa, but quickly realized it was not, and his brief moment of hope was dashed against the rocks.

Theon's feet struck the ground. He swung his bow from over his shoulder and aimed it at the woman.

"Wildling," he snarled. Robb hadn't needed to be told. Still saddled, he inspected the woman. Her hair was a nest of knots. Her clothes hardly more than rags. She panted, as though she'd been running. But from what? Or to where? She seemed not to notice Theon's notched arrow. Her eyes were fixed upon the silver direwolf pin at Robb's throat. It was a perfect copy of the lordling's.

"Are you missing something, little lord?" she asked, grinning up at him. "A wee brother, perhaps?"

Robb leapt from his horse. He reached the wildling in two long strides, drew his sword from its scabbard, and pressed the point of the blade against her stomach.

"What have you done with him?" he said, each word falling from his lips like a stone dropping to the bottom of a dry well.

"We got him somewhere nice and safe," Osha said, unperturbed. "We'll give him back to you, for a price o'course."

Robb's jaw clenched to near breaking point. He pushed the blade harder against her belly.

"If you kill me," Osha said, "you'll never get the boy."

For a moment, Robb did not move nor speak. His mind worked frantically. He longed to drive his sword straight through the woman, but she spoke true. The Wolfswood was vast. They could search for weeks and still not find Bran. Forcing back his desire, he said, "Take me to him."

"As you like," Osha said, grinning still.

Robb lowered his blade and returned to the saddle. Once the wildling was seated behind him, he looked to Theon, who's arrow remained fixed on the woman.

"Gather the men," he ordered the ward.

"You shouldn't go alone with-"

But Robb didn't wait to hear the rest. He spurred his horse into a reckless gallop, plunged into the blinding dark.

* * *

Nyssa could still hear the lordling's screams. Her own had been silenced. She choked on the blood and dirt that filled her mouth, trickled down her throat. On her stomach, she couldn't see the drifters' leader, but his weight pressed her into the ground. She felt as if she had a mountain on her back.

"No use fightin'," he said. His hands raked over her body. She heard ripping fabric, felt cold air on her now bare legs and Cyril's hardness against the small of her back. _No, no, no, _she thought, thrashing beneath him. She forgot who she was, how she'd gotten to this place. She even forgot about the lordling. Black spots burst across her vision. Fear as she'd never known before gripped her. She couldn't think, couldn't breathe, couldn't do anything. _Helpless. _The word coursed through her. It was not something she'd experienced before.

Cyril's hands left her body to unlace his breeches. His naked, sweaty skin slid over her own. _Let me die, _Nyssa pleaded, to whom she didn't know. The drifter's manhood throbbed against her thigh.

"Hurts less if you stay still," he said. His chest was pressed to her back. She could feel his heart racing against her spine. Then he sat, still straddling her. His breath quickened as he positioned himself. Exhausted and hopeless, Nyssa gave up the fight, something she had never done before. Tears streamed down her cheeks, unbidden and unnoticed. _I'm dead. _She willed herself to become a ghost, without a body.

Then Cyril cried out, not from pleasure, but from pain. His weight lifted.

Nyssa turned her head to the side, her cheek to the ground, and saw him towering above her, with his hand on his shoulder. When he moved it away, his palm was streaked crimson. A shard of steel protruded out from between his spine and shoulder blade.

"Bitch," he snarled at Osha, standing nearby with a broken knife raised at him. Cyril lunged at the woman. Nyssa could do no more than watch them. She remained flat on her stomach, feeling as if she were caught in a dream. Though the drifter woman fought well, and fiercely, she was no match for her leader. Within moments, he'd disarmed her. He delivered a swift and fisted blow. Osha's head snapped to the side and she collapsed, unmoving.

Nyssa stared at the woman, her face hidden beneath a dark tangle of hair. She didn't appear to be breathing. Then, still foggy-headed, Nyssa rolled onto her back. Cyril was sweeping down on her once more. She tried to stand, to face him, but her knees buckled. _Helpless_, she thought again. There wasn't an ounce of fight left in her. She was empty, the ghost she'd made herself. Her only hope was that he'd kill her quick now.

Cyril was less than a foot from her when a man burst out of the darkness, a sword raised high over his head. Blood and moonlight painted the steel. Cyril spun around. At the same time, the shadow-veiled man swung. His sword cut across the drifter's belly. Hot blood splattered Nyssa's face. Cyril's intestines spilled out around his feet. Then he fell forward, like a felled tree.

The man dropped his sword. He crouched beside her, reached out his hand, but pulled it back again when she recoiled.

"I won't hurt you," he said. The voice was familiar. Nyssa lifted her eyes to their face and found the boy-lord looking back at her. Still, when he made another move to touch her, she hissed. Robb hardly recognized her. The wildling's eyes glistened. _She's been crying. _The realization cut him to the quick. Southern women shed tears as often as they shed their gowns. _But not her, _he thought, _never her._

"Your hands," he said. "I want to untie them, that's all."

She continued to look at him as if he were a stranger who meant her harm.

"Nyssa," he said, his voice low and gentle. At the sound of her name, she was jerked suddenly from her waking nightmare. When he reached for her a third time, she didn't withdraw. The boy-lord worked carefully to free her hands. He tossed aside the belt. The wildling's wrists were banded with raw and angry welts from the tough leather.

"Seven hells," he muttered, holding one of her hands in his. Gently, he pried loose her fisted fingers. Bloody half moons marked her palms. His eyes roamed from her hands to her tattered skirt, torn short above her bleeding knees. "Did he-?"

"Bran?" Nyssa muttered, cutting him off.

"He's safe. On his way back to Winterfell." Bran had not wanted to go with the guards, without the wildling, but Robb had ordered the men to take the boy to the castle, before he'd charged on deeper into the woods, in search of Nyssa.

Before either of them could say anymore, they heard loud voices, calling out for the boy-lord. Moments later, Theon and two of the men appeared. Robb went to them. Nyssa didn't listen to the words he exchanged with his men.

She stared at Cyril, lying a pool of his own intestines. No longer was she empty, no longer a ghost. Hatred consumed every inch of her. A burning rage that painted her vision red. She rose, picked up the boy-lord's sword, and raised it as high as she could. Her first blow split the dead man's back. Her second shattered his skull. The crack of bones drew the others' attention to her, but Nyssa was somewhere else, far from them. She brought the sword down on the dead man again, and again, and again, until he looked like a wolf-ravaged carcass.

Finally, when the dead man was no longer even recognizably human, she looked at the southerners, all of them gaping at her, horrified. One of the guards looked as though he might wretch. The other had his sword in hand, ready to strike if the mad woman dared take a step towards him. Theon's lips were curled in disgust. Yet when she met the boy-lord's eyes, there was no fear, no repulsion, only concern.

"The other one," she said flatly. "With the tawny hair."

"Dead," Robb said. Nyssa nodded. She regretted that she'd not been the one to kill him.

"What about her?" Theon asked, gesturing at Osha. He crouched by the woman and put his hand close to her mouth. "Still breathing. Want me to finish her off?"

"No," Nyssa spoke first.

"I don't take orders from you," Theon spat.

"She lives," Nyssa said. "Or you die."

Theon raised his bow, but Robb quickly pushed it down. "We'll bring her back with us."

"But-"

"Do it." Robb's voice brokered no argument. But Theon did not cower.

"One crazed wildling is enough," he said. Then he spun furiously on heels and stomped off. The guards, though clearly displeased with the boy-lord's command, swept up Osha's limp body and carried her to the horses. Robb began to follow, but stopped when he realized that the wildling had yet to move. She stood over Cyril's butchered corpse, remembering what he'd said about the White Walkers.

"He's dead," Robb said. "Leave him for the wolves."

But wolves would not keep a man dead. Only fire could do that.


	18. Chapter 18

"Cold and dead they were, and they hated iron and fire and the touch of the sun, and every living creature with hot blood in its veins."

"Is she dying?" Alger asked. They sat knee to knee outside of Greta's tent. Inside, Nyssa's mother screamed.

"Yes," the little girl said.

"Is that how everyone sounds when they die?"

"Shut up," Nyssa hissed, pushing the scrawny boy sideways into the dirt, but she wondered, _did everyone scream like that when they died? _Her mother sobbed her name, _Nyssa, Nyssa_, like a prayer between long howls of agony.

Nyssa stood and reached out to draw back the tent flap. Alger caught hold of her arm. His eyes large and round with fear. "Don't go in there. S'not safe." She jerked her arm free and stepped into the tent any way. There was her mother, split open between the legs. Something was coming out of that gaping darkness. A fiery red head covered in blood. She watched the thing slide out of her mother into old Greta's waiting hands.

Her mother shuddered and then moved no more. There was silence, and then, the thing in Greta's arms took up her mother's screams. Nyssa backed out of the tent. Life and death sounded much the same.

* * *

Nyssa heard the boy-lord slip quietly into her room. She didn't turn to look at him. Through the window, the moonless moors stretched on and on. Beak's ghost wandered out there, but Illa's was many leagues away. Home, where she'd lived and where she'd died. _I burned her body, _Nyssa reminded herself. Always burn your dead, their father used to tell them, friend or foe.

"You should be resting," the boy-lord said. He didn't think she'd heard him, but went on nonetheless. "Bran told me what happened in the Wolfswood. You saved him. I won't forget."

"I didn't save anyone," Nyssa snapped, rounding on him. She looked near as crazed as she had when carving up the dead wildling man. Soon, though, the fire burned out. She leaned against the wall, felt the heat on her back, closed her eyes, and saw Cyril's maimed corpse stalking the moors, coming to finish what he'd begun. Have you ever seen one o' the cold folk, he'd asked her.

Nyssa opened her eyes and, knowing what she must do, marched towards the door.

"Where are you going?" Robb asked, standing in her way. She tried to shoulder past him, but he stepped sideways, refusing to budge.

"We have to go back, to burn them."She made another attempt to go around him. When he reached out to touch her, she slapped his hand away.

"I'm sorry," he muttered, letting his hand drop. The wildling's lips were drawn taut. He recognized her expression and knew this was an argument he couldn't win. "I'll send some men to burn the bodies." Though he didn't see the point, _dead is dead_, he'd rather listen to the men's complaints than let her return to that place.

"You'll send them now?"

"As soon as we're done talking," he said.

She looked back to the window. "Then we're done."But the boy-lord remained. "What do you want?" she sighed.

"I just...I wanted to..."He paused. She heard him pull in a deep breath. When he continued, he sounded more sure of himself. "That _man _will never hurt you again. No man will. You have my word."He spoke like a man, brimming with righteous fury, but he was still such a fool. _A brave fool, _she thought, remembering how he'd sliced open Cyril's belly. When she faced him again, Robb was surprised to see her smiling. There was something sad about it, something soft and pitying.

"Don't make promises you can't keep, boy. I'm not yours to protect."

"As long as you're in Winterfell, you are."

Nyssa saw something in the boy-lord she'd never noticed before. She saw the north in him. Our ancestors are the same as yours, Bran had tried to explain to her. She hadn't believed the child then, but she did now.

"I'll let you sleep," Robb said.

As he turned to go, the wildling's voice stopped him. "Were they your first kills?"

"Yes," he admitted. She smiled again at the flush in his cheeks, thinking now of her own first. She'd only been a girl of twelve and the man twice her age, twice as big. He'd tried to steal Illa, so she'd gutted him like a fish. She still remembered how hot his blood had been, how he'd screamed under her knife, and how she hadn't cared.

"You should have a woman tonight," she told the boy-lord. His cheeks turned an even darker shade of red. Nyssa's eyebrows raised. "You have been with a girl, haven't you?"

"Of course I have," Robb said.

"Well, find yourself one. You'll sleep better. If you do it right, you'll be too tired to dream about them."

"I won't dream about them."Once, he'd have said that they deserved to die because they were wildlings, but he hadn't killed Cyril's for that reason. He'd killed him, and he would kill him again, because the man had threatened Bran. Even more unsettling, he'd made Nyssa cry. "I'll have Alfwald keep the door."

"I don't need anyone to-"

"What you need is sleep," Robb said. For once, she let him win. _If the boy-lord wants to play hero, so be it._ He _had_ saved her. Though she knew not how to thank him in words, she would not forget either.

Nyssa returned to the window. She didn't feel at ease enough to lie down until she saw a band of men ride out across the moors, towards the Wolfswood. She hoped the bodies were still there by the time they arrived to burn them.

Out in the hall, Wald hummed to himself. Like her father, he couldn't carry a tune to save his life, but still he tried. No matter how hard she willed sleep to come, it wouldn't. She was afraid she might dream of Cyril, his eyes the palest blue of winter and his skin cold as ice.

* * *

When the first bloody streaks of dawn spilled into the room, Nyssa donned her clothes. She stepped over Alfwald, asleep in the hall, and crept out of the castle in the still of morning. The few servants she met in the yard turned their faces away and hurried past her. Even the gateman looked nervous when she joined him atop the battlements. He didn't speak to her and she was glad for that. Being feared had its advantages.

Nyssa spotted the men first. Their black cloaks flew behind them and they appeared as six shadows cutting through the mist."They're back," she said, staring out at the impenetrable wall of dark green woods in the distance and hoping to catch a curl of smoke, some small proof of fire. Nyssa trusted the boy-lord well enough, but his men were another thing.

She was in the yard again by the time the signal was given to raise the gate. Theon Greyjoy rode ahead of the others. He halted mere feet from where Nyssa stood, no doubt thinking to intimidate her.

"It's done," he said, glowering down at her. He'd spent the whole night dragging and burning corpses. Now, he spat at the wildling's feet, wishing he could strike her. "Should have burned you with them."The rest of the men came through the gate. They rode past her, tall on their tired steeds, with malice in their eyes. Nyssa shivered, but it was not the boy-lord's men that frightened her. She turned her back on them all.

She slipped through a narrow, wooden door. Darkness greeted her like an old friend. Running her hands along the stone walls, she descended a steep staircase that led deeper and deeper below the earth. How deep, she didn't know, having only come this way once before. That time the red-headed lady had led their way by torchlight.

With each step, came a moment when Nyssa's foot dangled over the abyss and she was tempted to draw it back, but she forced herself onwards, until she saw a puddle of torchlight at the bottom of the stairs, the end of her slow fall.

The staircase spilled out into a dimly lit corridor lined on either side by cells. Nyssa stopped at the very last one and peered through the iron bars at the woman within.

"I thought you might come," Osha said. Her dark, greasy hair fell in clumps over her eyes. "Did you burn them?"

Nyssa nodded. She curled her fingers around the cold, iron bars. "Why did you help me?"

"Only reason I stayed with that lot was to get this side of the Wall." Osha leaned forward. Her voice reminded Nyssa of home, of ice and the wild. "But I saw 'em rape and butcher enough. Figured since we'd made it south, I didn't need them no more. But tell me, how'd a little girl like you end up grovelling at a crippled lord's feet?"

Nyssa tensed at bring called _girl._"I don't grovel and how I got here is none of your business."

Osha slumped back against the wall. "Fair enough."

"What were you running from?"

"You already know, girl. You told that boy-lord to burn the bodies. I heard you. You're sure he listened?"

Nyssa nodded again.

"Good," Osha said. "The dead should stay dead. 'Specially those bastards."

As Nyssa made the long, dark climb back to daylight, she remembered the stories Greta used to tell them about the Others. They'll be back, the old mage warned, you'll know they're coming when you feel the cold in your blood. Nyssa hadn't understand what she'd meant then. How could blood be cold? But when she'd looked into Cyril's eyes, she'd known.

* * *

For the third night in a row, Bran was woken suddenly by a cold chill under his skin. When he opened his eyes, he found the wildling staring back at him from her chair by the door. The cold came from her, he knew. It seeped from her nightmares into his.

"Those wildlings were running from something, weren't they?" he asked.

"Yes."

"Do you think they really saw the Others?"

She was quiet for a moment. Then, "You've never been over there. The snow does things to the eyes. It drives men mad. They saw something, little lord, but it wasn't no Others."

Bran curled his fingers into Summer's fur. "I know you're scared."

"Fear is for children. I'm not a child."

"Everyone is afraid sometimes," Bran said. "And I know you are. I can...I can feel it. You're dreaming about that man. You dream he's coming back, only he's not a man anymore. He's-"

Nyssa stood suddenly. Her voice was an angry tongue of flame in the dark. "You don't know me." She slammed the door behind her, but even so, she felt the fallen child's eyes upon her back. She felt him inside of her, as he felt her.

* * *

The days came and went. Though Nyssa still dreamt of Cyril's walking, blue-eyed corpse, the dead man remained dead and the three-eyed crow began to visit her sleep again. So she did all she could to stay awake, not wanting to see any of it. The boy-lord had released Osha. More than once, she'd thought of asking the woman about home. Was Mance still raising an army? Did the Frozen-River people still eat the flesh off of their enemies' bones? Was the land shifting, as Greta had prophesied, and were the dead truly walking? But Nyssa never asked. She knew the answers already.

Osha had taken to following the fallen child around wherever he went, while Nyssa did all she could to avoid the boy. Let the new _wildling_ tell him stories. Let her protect him. She did not want to see or speak to the child. You don't know me, she'd told him, but she knew it was a lie. She _was_ frightened, more so of the bond between them than any wight. Even as she distanced herself from the boy, even as she denied him, the bond between them grew stronger each day.

Nyssa knelt at the edge of the godswood pond and dragged her fingertips across the smooth, silvery surface. The water was freezing cold. In the south, she'd seen only one weirwood, the one the Starks prayed to. When she pressed her palms against the white bark, she felt a familiar pulse. It did not have the pounding heartbeat of the land over the Wall, but some magic remained to it. Here, in this grove, was the closest place she had to home.

_The dead be damned, _she thought, striking the surface of the pond. _I will go home. _Her fist broke through the icy water, sending out a wave of ripples. Whatever dangers lurked on the other side of the Wall, she didn't care. She belonged in the shadow of the Fangs, where her heart and mind would be her's once more. Not the gods'. Not the fallen child's. _Mine. _

The pouch of gold the boy-lord had given her was tucked under her pillow. At night, she counted it, wondering how much it'd cost to free two slaves, and if there'd be enough left over to buy passage across the bay, before winter came and the waters froze over.

The surface of the pond stilled, but the reflection that remerged in the wake of the ripples was not her own. Nyssa found herself face to face with Alger. He looked the same as she'd last seen him, all those months ago, and she wasn't surprised to see him now.

"You're dead, then," she said. "You're a ghost."

Alger smiled up at her. How she'd missed that smile. How she'd missed him. "Maybe I'm a vision," he said.

"I'm sorry I couldn't save you. I couldn't save..." Nyssa trailed off. She held her hand just over his reflection, wanting to touch his face, but afraid that if she shattered the calm surface again, he'd be gone.

"There isn't much time," Alger said. "I've come to warn you. You can't forget why you're here, Nys. If you do, it's all lost."

Nyssa drew back her hand. Her eyes narrowed in suspicion. "Did that bloody three-eyed crow send you?"

"No."

"Liar," she hissed. "Tell me, then, why am I here? How do the gods expect me to do anything at all, when they won't tell me a damned thing?"

"They tell you what you need to know."

"What about what I _want_ to know?"

"That isn't how it works. You know that and you know you can't leave the boy. He needs you."

"I don't care about him," Nyssa snapped.

Alger smiled again. "Now who's the liar?"

Losing her temper, she struck the surface of the pond again, hoping to wipe the smile from his face. His image rippled apart. When the water stilled yet again, he was gone and she regretted what she'd done. She leaned over the pond. "Please, come back. Don't leave me again, brother. Please."

But Alger did not return. Were it not for the pain in her heart, she'd have believed that he'd never been there at all.


	19. Chapter 19

"Boys believe nothing can hurt them...Grown men know better."

Robb was too tired to eat. For hours, he'd warred with Rickon down in the crypts. The little boy refused to leave. He and his black direwolf hid in the shadows between the tombs. "You can't stay down here forever," Robb told him. "I'll stay until Father comes home," the boy said.

So Robb had left him there. Rickon would surface on his own, when the hunger and the cold set in. Still, he didn't feel good about leaving his baby brother in the crypts. If Mother were here...But she wasn't and he didn't know when, or if, she'd ever come home. As for their father, Rickon would starve to death waiting for him.

"You're not eating," Robb said, turning his thoughts from one brother to the other.

Bran stopped pushing his food around his plate. "Neither are you."

"Lamb's your favorite, not mine." But to set an example, Robb took a hearty bite. The lamb was tender and well seasoned. To him, though, it tasted like parchment. The effort was wasted. Bran set down his fork.

Robb set down his fork as well. He gestured for the servants to clear the table and go. Once they had, he said, "Well, are you going to tell me what's wrong?"

Bran looked stubbornly at the table.

"You used to tell me everything," Robb said. He sighed. Since the fall, his brother had changed, and that change became more apparent every day. It frightened Robb. He didn't understand it and couldn't make Bran explain. "I know you miss Mother and Father. I do, too, but we have to take care of each other while they're gone. I can't do that if you won't tell me what's wrong."

Still, Bran said nothing. It was no use. Being a lord was hard enough. Trying to be a father was even harder and Robb had leaned that he was no good at it. "You talk to the wildling, but not your own brother."

Bran's head shot up. "She doesn't talk to me anymore," he said. For a moment, Robb was stunned that he'd finally spoken.

"What do you mean?"

"That man who attacked us, he did something to her. He hurt her and she's mad at me, because I couldn't help her. Because I'm just a useless cripple." The words flew out of him. By the end, Bran was glowering at the table again.

Robb leaned forward. "Look at me." Reluctantly, the boy did. "Never say that. You're Brandon Stark of Winterfell. Your ancestors were kings. As for the wildling..." He sighed again. "She isn't mad at _you_. What happened...it's complicated."

"I understand more than you think I do," Bran snapped.

Robb almost smiled. The wildling had once said those same words. Looking at his brother now, he realized that Bran spoke the truth. He was not a little boy anymore and had not been since the fall. But he was not fully a man, either. _Neither am I._

* * *

Robb found the wildling in the godswood, just as Alfwald had said he would. He supposed it made sense that she'd taken refuge there. The wildings worshipped the old gods, too, though he'd never given much thought to the fact that the Starks shared faith with their centuries' old enemies. Kneeling at the edge of the pond, the wildling stared into the water, as if she expected the gods themselves to appear. There was such longing in her face, the same he'd seen when she'd spoken briefly of home.

"What do you want?" Nyssa asked, without turning around. Of course she'd known he was there. She always seemed to know. Robb joined her by the pond. She kept her eyes fixed on the water.

"Bran misses you. He says you're avoiding him."

"I keep an eye on him. Don't worry, boy. I'm doing my _duty._"

Robb ran his hand through his hair. Gods, she made him uncomfortable. Talking to her was like talking to a mountain. No matter what you said, a mountain would never move for you. Still, he tried."It's not your duty anymore. I told you, you're free to go whenever you like. If it's too difficult for you to be here after-"He fell short of words when the wildling met his gaze, just as haughtily as the day they'd met, but he knew her better now. She hadn't been the only one watching these past months.

A cold wind sent the red weirwood leaves hissing above them. He remembered Bran's nameday and the dolls she'd carved for him. He remembered kissing her and had to look away. "Do you want to go home?"

"Yes."

"Then why don't you?"

Nyssa was silent for sometime. If only she knew the answer. She looked back to the pond, hoping that Alger would be there and knowing that he wouldn't. _I don't belong here, _she thought to him any way. _I belong with you, with Illa. _

"War's coming," Robb went on. "You should go before it does."

"If you want me to go, say so, and be done with it." She half-hoped that he would. Then she would not have to decide for herself.

"That's not what I'm getting at. You saved my brother. Ask me anything and it's yours." Robb stood. When the wildling tilted her head back to look at him, white moonlight bathed her face, and he realized that he didn't want her to go. He trusted her, even cared for her in a way, but he would never dare claim to own her. She was a free folk, as they called themselves, and always would be. "There will always place in Winterfell for you, if you want it. The choice is yours."

Nyssa watched him disappear between the trees, like a ghost himself. _The choice is yours._ For months, fate had dragged her along, but not the boy-lord. His words rang in her ears long after he'd gone. They took root inside of her, bringing life to what had died.

* * *

Alone in her room, Nyssa sat in the middle of her big bed and weighed the purse of gold in her hands. _The choice is yours. _She heard the three-eyed crow's wings rustle, felt his weight on her shoulder. Her heavy eyelids closed. She saw Bran surrounded by the blue-eyed dead in a field of snow beneath the shadow of a great weirwood. Then he became Illa, dying on the ice with an arrow in her back. Then her pregnant mother singing to the gods under a grim, winter moon.

The three-eyed crow had its talons in Nyssa's shoulders. It carried her from place to place. Images appeared and melted away. Her toes skimmed the ground and then they were flying off somewhere else. To a dark house beaten by the wind, up a flight of crooked stairs, and down a long hall. Nyssa heard Cara singing behind one of the many closed doors.

Then they were flying over green hills sparkling with dew, over armies of steel men, and into a great, white tent. Nyssa found herself face to face with the boy-lord, bent over a map in the candlelight. Shadows in the shape of lions prowled the walls of the tent. He didn't see them. She opened her mouth to warn him, but couldn't speak. The three-eyed crow cawed in her ear...

She woke, startled. _The choice is yours _With the pouch of gold clutched in her fist, she hurried across the big room and flung open the door. Alfwald stopped humming when she burst into the hall.

"Another nightmare?" he asked. Though she'd told him many times that he didn't need to keep watch over her door anymore, Wald insisted. Nyssa didn't understand why he'd taken a liking to her. She'd never given him a reason to. Not even now. She ignored his concern.

"How would a person go about finding two slaves?" she asked.

Wald's square, red brow furrowed in thought. He was used to the wildling's strange questions and had long since given up on trying to pry an explanation from her. "Well, I suppose you'd have to put a good deal of coin in the right pockets."

"What pockets?"

"Can't say I know that. I ain't no slaver. Lord Eddard doesn't tolerate that sort of behavior in his-"

Nyssa had stopped listening. She spun around and left him talking to the air, knowing he'd still be there when she returned. She didn't know if the the man was kind or stupid. In truth, it didn't matter. The two were much the same.

* * *

Robb struggled to focus on what the Head Steward was telling him, something about the grain stores and preparing for winter, but his thoughts were on the wildling. He doubted she'd stay in Winterfell much longer. Would she say goodbye or sneak off in the middle of the night? He hoped for the first, but suspected she'd chose the latter. Perhaps that would be for the best.

_Forget her, _he told himself. Yet he was haunted by her eyes and found himself looking over his shoulder, expecting to find her stalking behind him as she had in the beginning. Like his own shadow, he'd stopped noticing her until she wasn't there anymore. Where did shadows go when not with you?

"My lord?"

"What?" Robb said, drawn suddenly back to the room. Maester Luwin was frowning at him across the table, but it was the Head Steward who spoke, while the old men reserved his reprimands for later, in private.

"It's time to sheer the sheep," the Head Steward said. "Your father usually oversees the collection. Under the circumstances, I'd be honored to relieve you of that burden. I know how busy you-"

"I will do as my father does," Robb said, though inwardly he cringed. Yet another task that he didn't have time for.

"Of course, my lord," the Head Steward said. He was younger than Vayon Poole, but already balding, and overeager to please the young lord of Winterfell. Robb thought him somewhat useless, but his father had taken nearly all the men of worth to King's Landing. He made due with what remained to him.

"I fear Winter Town will be more crowded than ever this winter," Maester Luwin said. "It always is after a long summer. We may need to raise more homes to accommodate the surplus in population. I'd suggest-"

The door flew open and the wildling marched into the room. Maester Luwin closed his mouth. He took on an expression Robb knew well- disapproval. The Head Steward was so startled that he nearly fell out of his chair, but the boy-lord didn't so much as blink. When she saw them gathered around the table, she stopped mid step. "Didn't mean to intrude," she said, looking unapologetic as always.

The Head Steward rose. He gaped at the wildling for a moment, his round face growing purple as he suffered some great internal dilemma. After a moment, he gave a jerky bow and muttered, "My lady." The wildling's lips curled back. She stared at the man for a second longer, before glancing past him to Robb.

"I need to talk to you," she said.

Maester Luwin cleared his throat. "If you'd like to speak to the lord, I'm sure it can wait until-"

"Leave us," Robb interrupted.

"As you wish," Maester Luwin said stiffly as he rose. The Head Steward hurried past the wildling with the same look in his eyes that people got around the direwolves. Robb would've laughed, had Maester Luwin not paused in the doorway and frowned back at him. The young lord dreaded the lecture that certainly waited for him tomorrow, but for now, he gave his full attention to the wildling.

Nyssa strode across the room and dropped the pouch of gold on the table before him. "You said if I needed anything, all I had to do was ask. Can you track down two slaves? Wald said all you have to do is put the gold in the right pockets."

"And you need me to find those pockets," Robb said. He picked up the purse. It was heavier than he remembered.

"I don't _need_ you do to anything," the wildling said. She snatched the purse out of his hand, but that she didn't leave gave her away. Robb smiled. No matter what she said, she did _need_ his help, or else she wouldn't be here. Though he was sorely tempted to make her beg, for all the times she'd disrespected him, he knew that could take years and he had little time to spare..

"I'll do it," he said. "But only if you tell me why."

Nyssa's eyes narrowed. Robb pretended not to notice and went on. "Slavery isn't allowed here. If you want me to buy you-"

"I want you to free them," the wildling snapped.

"Why?"Robb held her gaze and, for once, he was not the first to look away. Nyssa glowered at her feet. She opened her mouth, but quickly closed it. Her lips pressed together in a sharp, white line. A dark red flush rose to her cheeks. He thought it was a blush of rage, until she finally looked at him again. Her eyes were dark with unspeakable regret and, suddenly, he remembered the bruises she'd carried with her to Winterfell.

"These slaves, they came here with you, didn't they?"

Nyssa's eyes widened in surprise. She gave a rigid nod.

"You left them behind when you escaped."

Again, she nodded. Her face hardened. "They're only _wildlings._" She practically spat the word. "I know our kind isn't allowed here, but they didn't have much choice in the matter, and they don't deserve to be slaves for it."

"I agree," Robb said. Before she'd come to Winterfell, though, he might not have. "I'll find them. You have my word."

"It's not your word that I asked for." She dropped the purse of gold on the table again and left.


	20. Chapter 20

**"She had cried in her sleep the night before, dreaming of her father. Come morning, she'd woken red-eyed and dry, and could not have shed another tear had her life hung on it."**

Nyssa learned that she could barricade herself against the fallen child and still be with him. It was a demanding task. If her guard slipped just a hair's breadth, then the boy stole inside of her. Every time that happened, she found it harder to weed him out again. But as long as she remained in Winterfell, she could not abandon him. The promise she'd made to the red-headed lady hung over her.

"You've gotten better at riding," Bran said. Two guards rode before them and two behind. Not long ago, Nyssa would've chaffed at their presence, but she was grateful for them now. She was weakest against the fallen child when alone with him. "Proper ladies ride side-saddle, though."

She didn't look at him when she spoke. The Wolfswood was just up ahead. Soon, they would have to turn back. The boy-lord had forbidden them to go past the moors."What's side-saddle?"

"You put both legs over one side of the horse."

Nyssa scowled at the idea. She dug her knees into the great beast beneath her. "Why'd anyone want to ride like that?"

"Jon told me it's so the ladies' skirts don't blow up in the wind."

"Well, why don't they just wear pants?"

"I don't know," Bran admitted. "They just don't."

Nyssa risked a glance at the boy. His brow was furrowed in thought. He looked so serious and so childish. "I'd like to see a man in a dress," she said. "I think your brother'd be very pretty in fine, purple silks."

Bran laughed and she smiled at the sound. It wasn't just her oath to the red-headed lady that made it so she couldn't turn her back on the fallen child, no matter how much she longed to. The boy was special. She didn't need the gods to tell her that anymore. He had more of the north in him than any of them, more even than her. Yet, somehow, he was warm as summer, and she feared that when winter finally came, his warmth would leave the world with all the rest.

"I told Osha about my..." Bran looked warily at the guards. "About my dreams."

Nyssa tightened her grip on the reigns. Her smile blew away on the wind.

Noticing the change in her, Bran rushed on. "I didn't say anything about you, though. I only needed someone to talk to about them."

"Do you like her better me than me now?"Her teasing fell flat on both their ears.

"I like you different. She doesn't understand, though, like you do."

Nyssa didn't understand near as much as he thought she did, but she didn't say that to the boy. "I'll race you back to Winterfell," she said, spurring her horse into a gallop the way he'd shown her. Bran quickly overtook her. She slowed and watched him grow smaller. The guards rushed after him, leaving her behind. He had his father's men and a new wildling to protect him. Nyssa only had herself and that had never bothered her before she'd come south.

* * *

Every morning and every night, Nyssa waited for the boy-lord outside of his room. Her's was the first and last face he saw. After a fortnight of _putting gold in the right pockets_, though, he still had no news for her. She'd begun to lose faith that Cara and Briar would ever be found. She dreamt of the long, dark hall of closed doors. Sometimes, she heard Cara singing, sometimes sobbing, and worst of all, sometimes silence.

Nyssa paced before the boy-lord's door. She'd been waiting for him to emerge for nigh on an hour and could wait no more. She feared Cara and Briar didn't have much time left. It irked her that the boy-lord was sleeping peacefully in his big, cozy bed, while an innocent mother and child wept in chains in some cold, pitiless place.

When she entered the room, however, she found that the boy-lord was not asleep. He sat at the table, wearing yesterday's wrinkled clothes. His curly hair stood on end from dragging his fingers through it. Dark shadows circled his bloodshot eyes. "You look worse than shit," Nyssa said.

The insult passed over him without notice. He stared at the piece of parchment before him, his expression weary and taut with woe. She didn't need to ask to know that whatever that paper said, it wasn't good. Without a word, he pushed it towards her across the table. She squinted hard at the black letters for a moment, before looking back at him. "I can't read."

Robb sighed. Of course, she couldn't. "King Robert Baratheon is dead," he said. "The Lannisters have arrested my father for treason." Though he'd read Sansa's letter a dozen times throughout the night, he hadn't believed her words, _the queen's words_, until he spoke them aloud. Hot tears damned up behind his eyes. He would not cry in front of the wildling.

Nyssa, forgetting about Cara and Briar, fell into the chair across from him. She was silent for some time, thinking. The southron king was nothing to her. Good riddance. The boy-lord's father was nothing to her, as well. She didn't know the man, had never met him, or even seen him. "Did he kill the king?"

Robb's blue eyes flashed in anger. "My father's no kingslayer and he's no traitor, either."

"But the lions say he is."

"They're lying."

The wildling pursed her lips, thinking again. Bran had told her all about the lion queen and her cubs, the oldest of which she supposed had inherited his father's throne, as was the southron's way. "Doesn't matter. The lions have all the power now. Power can make lies into truth."

Robb sighed again, knowing that she was right. He could defend his father's honor until his dying breath, but it wouldn't change a thing. It wouldn't set Lord Eddard free. Still, he couldn't help himself. "My father's a good and loyal man. He's Hand of the King and Warden in the North. They wouldn't dare harm him."

Nyssa understood that he meant to convince himself more than her. It didn't work. Despite his conviction not to cry before her, a tear blazed down his cheek, and he waited for her to mock his weakness. _Go on, _he thought, _call me a stupid boy, tell me how useless I am. _But she did none of those things.

She rounded the table until she stood at his side. Then, she reached out, and brushed the tear from his cheek with her thumb. Her expression remained hard as ice, but when she spoke, her voice was softer than he'd ever heard it. "Don't cry, boy. It won't save your father. I know." She thought of all the tears she'd shed for her father, for her mother, for Illa. She'd cried an ocean for her family and it had only left her hollow.

"Your parents...?" Robb said.

Nyssa drew back her hand. "Gone," she said. "But yours aren't yet. Save your tears for the dead. Don't waste them on them living."

* * *

Don't say anything to Bran, the boy-lord told her before she left him. She gave her word that she wouldn't, but words were made to be broken. Soon after she left Robb's room, Summer found her halfway down the eastern tower stairs. The beast stared up at her, its golden eyes narrowed, and she stared right back, knowing what the wolf wanted.

"Not know," she said. Summer growled low in his throat. When she tried to step around him, he moved with her. No matter where she went, it seemed there was always either a Stark or one of their damned wolves in her way. "You go tell your master to bugger off." The direwolf understood her, just as she understood it. Summer and the fallen child were one in the same skin. Sometimes, when Nyssa stumbled into one of Bran's dreams, she couldn't tell whose mind she was in, the boy's or the wolf's.

Summer growled again. She suspected that the beast didn't like her anymore than she liked it, but they were bound by the fallen child. By the gods themselves. She could not win every battle against them. "Fine," she said, spinning around and marching back up the stairs, with the direwolf close on her heels.

Bran was nestled in the window seat with a blanket thrown over his legs and the morning sunshine pooling around him, but his expression was black as night. Nyssa swallowed her anger. The boy was not to blame for anything. He could not help who he was, whatever he was.

"Were you with Robb?" Bran asked.

"I was."

"Has something happened to Father?"

Nyssa wasn't surprised by the boy's question. She'd felt it burning in his heart as soon as she'd entered the room. Don't say anything to Bran, the boy-lord told her, but he didn't understand. His brother already knew, in a way, and had for sometime.

"Tell me the truth," Bran said. "You're the only one that doesn't lie to me."

"The king is dead. The lions have your father."

The words hit the boy hard and she wondered, for just a moment, if she'd done the right thing. His face went pale, but he did not cry, as his brother had. Bran turned back to the window. "Is there going to be a war?" he asked, the slightest tremor in his voice.

"Yes, lordling."The truth was hard, but she'd sworn to his mother that she'd protect him, and if he was to survive, he needed to know. He needed to be prepared, to be strong. The boy-lord wanted to coddle his baby brother, but Nyssa had made that mistake before. She had been Illa's sword and shield. She'd lied to her about the wolf dreams, to protect her, and in the end, her sister had burned all the same.

* * *

Nyssa was in the godswood when Theon Greyjoy found her. Though her eyes were closed, she felt his shadow fall over her.

"I never imagined wildling's would pray so much," he said.

"I don't pray." She opened her eyes. "Did the lord send you?"

"If you're not praying, then what do you do out here all day?"

It was none of his business what she did, but Nyssa was not in the mood for a fight today, and the Greyjoy wasn't worth her energy. She stood, keeping her back pressed against the weirwood. "I remember."Before Theon could ask anymore questions, she fled the godswood.

The boy-lord waited for her upon his great chair in the Great Hall. It seemed many years ago that she'd first seen him. The room hadn't changed, but the boy in the chair had. He'd grown, though he was not yet a man. Nyssa stopped on the second step of the dais, so that they were at eye level. She was certain he meant to reprimand her for telling Bran the truth.

"I did the right thing," she said, not giving him the chance to begin. "Your brother's not a baby. He's old enough to know what's what, so you can scream at me all you like, but I won't regret what I did."

"You broke your word," Robb said, calmer than she'd expected him to be. "But I shouldn't be surprised. Since when have you ever done as I asked?"

"Am I to be whipped, _my lord_?"

"I don't think it'd do any good." A half-hearted smile was all he could muster, but he gave it to her nonetheless. "I'd have liked to have been the one to tell him, but it doesn't matter now." Robb didn't admit that a part of him was glad she'd disobeyed, as he didn't know if he'd ever have been able to do it himself.

"If you're not mad, why'd you summon me?"the wildling asked.

"I found them, your friends."

Nyssa's brow furrowed at the word _friends_. She looked at him, confused now. What friends? Then, it hit her. Cara and the girl. "Where?"

"They were sold to the Barrowtown brothel," the boy-lord said. She didn't know where Barrowtown was, but she didn't care. Nyssa thought of the long, dark hallway from her dreams, of Cara sobbing behind a closed door. "Where are you going?" the boy-lord called after her. She didn't answer him. She kept walking.

Robb leapt down from the dais and caught up to her. "Hold on," he said, grabbing hold of her arm.

"I have to go to them," Nyssa said, glaring at him, daring him to try to stop her.

"I know. I'm coming with you."Before she could protest, he hurried on. "You'll find them a lot faster if you know where you're going."

He was right, _for once_, and she couldn't afford to waste time arguing. Still, she couldn't help asking one thing before she agreed. "Why?"It was a simple enough question, but Robb struggled to find an answer. He needed to be free of Winterfell for awhile, free of the war to come, and free of Sansa's letter. Though he did not tell the wildling of that desire, she saw it written clear across his face. She remembered all the times she'd fled to the Fangs after her father died. The boy-lord said, "I'm Warden in the North now. It's my duty to uphold the king's law and to serve justice to those who break it."

Nyssa inspected him for a moment. Let him come, then, if he so wished. She turned her back on him once more and continued down the hall. "We leave now," she said. Though he was a lord, more than ever now that his father was imprisoned, and lords did not take commands from wildling women, Robb followed her without complaint.


	21. Chapter 21

**"The grave casts long shadows...Long and dark, and in the end no light can hold them back."**

Nyssa and Robb rode through the morning, and well into the afternoon, in silence. Eventually, he tried to strike up a conversation, but the wildling refused to give him so much as a grunt. Her eyes never left the horizon ahead, not even after it was devoured by night. When Robb finally brought his horse to halt, she didn't notice until she'd gone on a few feet ahead.

The wildling tried to pull her sleek gray around, but the young female refused to obey. Nyssa soon gave up. She slid down from the saddle instead, and returned to the boy-lord on foot, leaving her horse to graze where it pleased.

"Why'd you stop?" she asked, speaking for the first time since they'd set out. Her throat was raw from the harsh winds over the barrowlands.

"We need to make camp," Robb said. He untied the water skein from his saddle and tossed it to her. The wildling let it land at her feet. She didn't even look at it. "Drink."

"I'm not thirsty," she croaked. "And we're not making camp. It's better to ride at night."

Robb leapt down from his horse. "Maybe so, but not when you've been riding all day. The horses need to rest. So do we." He picked up the skein and held it out to her. Nyssa took it, but still did not drink.

"The horses can go a little longer," she said.

Robb rolled his eyes. She didn't know the first thing about horses, that much had been obvious from the beginning. Even Rickon was a better rider than the wildling. "You can keep going on foot, if you like," he said, brushing past her. "But the horses and I are staying here."He left her there, fuming, and went after the gray.

Nyssa glared after him. The gray went to him immediately. She cursed the beast, and the boy-lord, and began walking. She didn't say anything to him as she passed by.

Walking was better, any way. Her own two feet were more reliable than a stupid horse. When she looked back, the boy-lord was gone. To her right, stretched the wolfswood. Everywhere else the barrows rose and fell, like black waves on a black night.

She stopped at the base of a steep mound and felt the dead underfoot. Was it the wind howling or the ghosts of the First Men, intent on luring her astray? It would be all too easy to lose one's self in this place. Nyssa couldn't tell one barrow apart from the next. Defeated for now, she made her way back to the boy-lord.

By the time she returned to where she'd left him, Robb was gone, but his wolf was waiting for her. As soon as Grey Wind spotted her, he padded off into the woods. Nyssa followed reluctantly to a small clearing, no more than seven feet wide, where the boy-lord was tending to the fire.

"Didn't think you'd give up so soon," he said, glancing up at her. Nyssa ignored him. She settled down in a bed of pine needles on the other side of the clearing, out of range of the fire's warmth. Her stomach growled, reminding her that she hadn't eaten since the day before, but she didn't want to eat, or sleep. When she closed her eyes, even if only for a second, she saw that long, dark hallway from her dreams. The trees gave them some protection from the wind, but not from the cold. She pulled her knees against her chest.

"It's warmer over here," Robb said.

"I'm used to the cold," the wildling muttered. Still, she shivered.

"Suit yourself." Robb stretched out on the ground. He rolled over, putting his back to the fire and the woman. It would take them eight days to reach Barrowtown. _I should be with my brothers, _he hadn't even told anyone that was leaving, he'd only left a note for Maester Luwin, to keep them from worrying. He asked himself why he was here, on his way to rescue two wildlings, while his father remained prisoner in King's Landing. Summon the bannermen, Theon had urged, but Robb knew that once he did, there'd be no going back. He was not ready for war.

"How long before we get there?" the wildling asked.

"Eight days." Robb rolled over. She'd moved closer to the fire. "We can probably make it in seven, though."

Nyssa frowned, but made no further argument. She didn't need to. Her frown said more than enough. The boy-lord sat up. Gray Wind settled next to him and rested his shaggy head on his master's knee. Robb scratched behind the wolf's ears, his thoughts elsewhere. He remembered camping in the Wolfswood with his father and Jon as a boy. He ached for their company now and for the stories his father used to tell them when they were huddled close together around the fire.

Weary of silence and memory, he said,"Legend has it that the First Men are buried under the barrows."The wildling didn't look up at him. He didn't care if she was listening. He only wanted to distract himself. "The First Men were the first humans to come to Westeros. They carved out their holdfasts and farms, burning the weirwoods as they went, until the Children of the Forest tried to put a stop to them."

"I know the history as well as you," Nyssa said, thinking about the Child she'd met in the Fangs. "The First Men are my ancestors, too, boy."

"Oh, right," Robb said. It was strange, they had the same ancestors, the same gods. Thousands of years ago, they'd been the same people. It was easy to forget that now with the Wall between them. "Did your father tell you about the First Men?" he asked. The wildling stared at him for a moment, the light of the fire reflected in her dark, round eyes. He'd known she wouldn't answer even as he'd asked.

* * *

Conversation did not improve between Robb and the wildling. The further they travelled, the more anxious she became. At night, she tossed about on the cold, hard ground. Sometimes she whimpered words that Robb couldn't hear over the constant howling of the wind. Sometimes she woke suddenly, clutching at her chest. He didn't ask what she dreamt of, but he wondered silently to himself.

She was not the only one, though, plagued by nightmares. Robb often dreamt of his father, or of his sisters, and of a creeping darkness that masked the sun. By day, he tried not to think about the dreams or his family. He tried not to think of anything at all, but Sansa's letter stole into his mind when he least expected it. Bend the knee, she'd pleaded, bend the knee and all will be well. Robb was not such a fool as to believe that. He knew if he did as the Lannisters commanded, they'd never allow him to leave King's Landing. To be a prisoner was a fate worse than death. That's what he told himself, at least, yet those words, _all will be well_, haunted him. Perhaps he should bend the knee. Perhaps then, the Lannisters would spare his father and the girls.

On the third day of their journey, the Wolfswood slipped out of sight behind them. Keeping to the grassy plains, they led their horses between the burrows looming all around. Nyssa didn't like the ancient burial mounds anymore by day than she did by night. The graveyard of the First Men spread from horizon to horizon, seemingly without end.

On their forth day, they awoke to a chill, gray drizzle. Robb pushed his damp hair back from his eyes and took in their surroundings. They would reach Torrhen's Square by sunset. He was eager to be out of the rain. His mouth watered in anticipation for a hot supper. When he spotted Tallhart's castle in the distance, he brought his horse to a halt. It'd been many years since he'd last come here, with his father, but the holdfast was the same as he remembered it. From here, he could see where the Saltspear River flowed into the great, silvery lake to the north of the Keep.

"Torrhen's Square," Robb said, gesturing to the castle ahead.

Though Nyssa was loathe to admit it, the southrons did know how to build. She gazed at the stone towers, so tall they appeared to pierce the iron sky.

"We'll stay there tonight. Lord Tallhart will provide us fresh mounts in the morning." They'd made better progress than he'd imagined they would. Still, their horses could not keep pace for much longer. They were as weary as their riders, but had none of the wildling's stubborn determination to drive them on.

"This lord, is he one of your father's?"

Robb nodded. The Tallhart's had held Torrhen's Square for near as long as the Starks had been in Winterfell. They were an old, northern family. The blood of he First Men ran deep in their veins, but they were no friends to their savage kin over the Wall. Robb took in the wildling. Her clothes were drenched through to the skin and her wet hair hung in tangles over her shoulders. "It's probably for the best if we don't tell them who you are."

"Who am I supposed to be, then?" Nyssa asked. "Your lady love?"

"That'll do," Robb said. Better Lord Tallhart believed her to be his mistress than know the truth. Before she could disapprove, he spurred his horse on towards the castle, hoping to arrive in time for supper.

* * *

Lord Helman Tallhart was a small and wiry man, but his voice filled every corner of the long hall. "We raised a hundred bowmen, as your Lady Mother requested," he informed the boy-lord over supper. "Moat Cailin is good and secure."

"You have our thanks, my lord," Robb said, trying to sound dignified with a mouthful of tart de brymlet. They didn't often have fresh fish in Winterfell, but he'd always had a taste for salmon, and there were none finer than those from the Saltspear. He was on his third helping. The wildling, however, had torn apart her own pie. She picked at its fish and raisin innards, her nose scrunched in distaste. She hadn't spoken since they'd arrived, for which Robb was grateful. Even so, Lady Tallhart watched the dark-haired stranger with the same look of disdain as the wildling looked at her food.

They'd been given dry clothes to wear. Nyssa shifted uncomfortably in the dress the fair lady had lent her. The sleeves were so tight that it was a struggle just to reach for her cup. As for the wine, itself, she couldn't stomach how sweet it was. To her, it tasted of flowers and vinegar.

Upon arriving, Lord Tallhart had taken one look at the wildling woman, cast a sly glance at Robb, and said not a word. He'd welcomed her warmly to his table. Robb was surprised their ruse had worked so well. Still, he looked at the wildling every few minutes, afraid she would give herself away. Though he hungered for a forth helping of fish pie, he decided they'd pushed their luck enough for one night.

"You've been a most gracious host, but I fear my lady and I are weary from the road," Robb said, setting down his fork.

"Of course you are," Lord Tallhart said, rising from his chair. His pale, little wife followed suit. "The barrows are a rough place, but you'll sleep peacefully tonight in a feather bed. Fayre," he addressed his wife, "go see the lady to her room."

When Lady Tallhart approached her, Nyssa turned her panicked eyes to Robb. He nodded. Watching her go, he prayed to the gods, old and new, that she'd behave.

"She's a pretty one," Lord Tallhart said, drawing the young lord's attention back to him. "If you don't mind my saying so, my lord, I always did think your father too damn honorable for his own good sometimes. Glad to see you're taking your pleasure where it comes. A man can't live on honor alone."

Robb winced at the mention of his father. Lord Tallhart noticed. "I was grieved to here what those Lannister devils have done to him," he said, placing a hand on Robb's shoulder. "If it comes to war, all you have to do is give the word and my sword is yours."

"Thank you, my lord," Robb said in a strained voice. "But I hope it will not come to that."

Lord Tallhart squeezed the young lord's shoulder. His gray eyes emanated pity, but Robb wanted none of it. "As do we all," Tallhart said. "You know as well as I, though, the Lannisters won't ever let your father go, unless we make them."

I don't need your advice, Robb thought, but he only said,"I'm tired, my lord,"and slid out from under Tallhart's hand. He wanted to tell the man that he wasn't a boy, he was the Lord of Winterfell, and he'd do as he saw fit. What irked him most was that they all- Tallhart, Maester Luwin, Theon Greyjoy- seemed to have the answers, but the final decision was not theirs. Should it come to war, the blood would not be on their hands.

But he might need Tallhart's sword someday, so he bit back his anger, and added, "On my return to Winterfell, we will continue this discussion. You're a loyal friend, my lord, and your advice is invaluable."

"Spoken like a true Stark," Tallhart chuckled. "Come on, then. Your lady's waiting for you. Tell me, she's baseborn, isn't she? Wise choice, my lord. All of the fun and none of the politics."

"Indeed," Robb said, forcing a smile.

* * *

As soon as the lord's pale, little wife was gone, Nyssa went to work on the gown. She fumbled blindly with the lacing up the back. Her fingers slid over the silk ribbons. Losing patience, she soon gave up the effort of untying them, and pulled as hard as she could. She felt caged in the dress. It was worse than iron chains. So consumed by her war with the southron gown, she didn't notice the boy-lord until he spoke."What are you doing?"

Nyssa spun around, tripping on her hem as she did. Her cheeks were flushed. She scowled down at the dress like it was some great foe and he nearly laughed, only he didn't dare, fearing her reaction. She tore at the laces for a minute longer, before letting her hands fall to her side. A growl of defeat caught in her throat. She glared at the boy-lord. "Well, don't just stand there staring," she snapped.

_My very own lady love, _Robb thought, crossing the room._ Sweet like all the songs. _The wildling put her back to him. He inspected the laces for a moment, his hands hovering over them, not knowing where to begin.

"Hurry on with it," Nyssa said. "I can't breathe in this damned thing."

"If that were true, you couldn't talk, either," he said, setting to work. He wasn't much better at it than her. It didn't help that she kept shifting her weight from foot to foot. "Hold still."

As the laces came undone, inch by grueling inch, the notches of her spine were revealed. She wore no undergarments, he realized. The dark green of the dress suited her milk-white skin. Soon as he was finished, Robb stepped back and forced down the unseemly thoughts that had arisen at the sight of her bare flesh. They returned to him double, however, when the wildling shed the dress. It pooled around her feet. Nyssa took a deep swallow of air and he found his eyes drawn to her chest as it rose and fell.

He knew he ought to look away. She was not his lady love, after all. Yet he couldn't. She was not like the whores in Winter Town. They were all round and soft, but the wildling's body was hard and narrow, almost boyish. He was mesmerized by how the firelight danced over her skin, and how she seemed hardly to notice her nakedness. The women he'd been with had all been shy and innocent. They hadn't fooled him. It was an act, he knew. Everything about the wildling, though, was honest to a fault. While that quality of hers drove him mad, it appealed to him just as strongly.

He watched her walk to the bed. She didn't sway her hips, like most women. There was nothing inviting about the way she moved. All the same, he hardened at the rearview, and blushing, finally looked away. "Aren't you going to..." He cleared his throat. "Put something else on?"

"Our clothes are still wet," Nyssa said. She threw back the covers and burrowed beneath them. "And if you think I'm sleeping in that damned dress, you can think again."

Robb let the matter go. He set about making a pallet on the floor. Nyssa watched him, curious and somewhat amused. The southrons were odd about nakedness. They acted like they didn't have bodies of their own. "What're you doing?"she asked him.

"Making my bed."

"Down there on the floor?"

"Yes."

"Why? There's plenty of room up here."

"For courtesy's sake." Robb risked looking at her again. He was relieved to find her covered by the blankets.

Nyssa snorted. "That's just plain stupid," she said, settling down into the pillows. She stared at the dark canopy overhead, listening to the boy-lord shift about on the floor, trying to get comfortable. Her thoughts soon drifted to Cara and Briar. More than anything, she wanted to keep going and not stop until she found them. The bed was soft and warm, though. Her joints ached after four days of riding and four nights of sleeping on the ground, and her eyes closed against her will.

Just before she drifted off, she heard the boy-lord creep towards the bed. A cold draft stole over her as he slipped under the covers. "What happened to courtesy, _my lord_?" she muttered, cracking open one eye. He lay with his back to her, as far away as he could without falling over the edge of the bed. She was asleep before he could answer and, for once, she did not dream.


	22. Chapter 22

**"She had gone south, and only her bones returned."**

Robb had never seen anyone skin a rabbit the way the wildling did. He watched her peel the animal's skin from its body like she was sliding a glove off of her own hand.

"You're good at that," he said.

"Been skinning rabbits all my life," she said. Her eyes fixed warily on Grey Wind as he stalked towards her to sniff the bloody pelt at her feet. She skewered the rabbit onto a stick and set it over the flames. Grey Wind turned his attention away from the pelt, to the smell of roasting flesh, and edged closer to the fire. "Go on, get," the wildling told him. "You've already had your supper."

The wolf didn't listen to her. It was Gray Wind who'd brought them the rabbits, but she wasn't about to thank him for it. He'd gobbled up the two plump ones and left them the runt.

"Did your father teach you?" Robb asked.

"No," Nyssa said. After a moment, she added. "My mother did."

"What happened to her?" Robb hadn't meant to ask. Nor could he bring himself to take it back now that he had. For months, she'd been with them, yet he still knew next to nothing about her, and though he trusted the wildling, he could not help but wonder what her life had been like before. What had made her so cold, so guarded? What terrible secrets was she hiding behind those black as night eyes? "You never talk about them, your parents, but you know all about mine. It's only fair-"

"Fair?" the wildling snapped. "There's no such thing as that, not in this world."

"How did they die?" he pressed on.

"Why do you want to know so bad?"She looked at him like she thought he was trying to trick her somehow.

"I just..." Robb faltered. He just what? "Nothing. Never mind." She had a right to her secrets, he supposed, even if keeping them killed her in the end, which he suspected they might. During their travels, he'd realized something about her that he hadn't seen before. For seven days, she'd hardly eaten, hardly slept, and hardly taken her eyes off of the horizon. At first, he just thought her determined to save her friends, but it was more than that. She was not running _to_ anything, rather she was running away. He knew, because he was doing the same.

"She died in childbirth," Nyssa said, taking the boy-lord by surprise. "My mother, I mean. I was just a girl."

"I'm sorry."

"Why? You didn't kill her." _The gods did that, _she thought, wiping the rabbit's blood from her knife on the grass. The blade needed sharpening.

"Still, I'm sorry," Robb said.

Nyssa took out the leather strap Alfwald had given her and set to sharpening her dagger. She drew the blade across the leather fast and hard, again and again.

"What happened to the baby?" Robb asked. Her hand jerked. The tip of the knife bit into her palm. The pain of her flesh was nothing compared to the sudden pain in her heart.

She didn't intend to answer him, but one word slipped past her her lips. "Dead." She peered into the flames. The smell of roasting rabbit made her stomach churn, as she thought of Illa burning. She didn't notice the boy-lord until he was at her side. He reached out and took her injured hand. Blood welled between the lines in her palm and she wondered, if Greta were to read her future there now, what would she see? She tore her hand from his.

"You need to clean that," he said, handing her the water skein. When she didn't take it, he uncorked the top himself. "Come on, let me see."

Reluctantly, she let him take her hand again. Nyssa hissed when the cold water washed over the open cut. "Sorry," the boy-lord said again. Then he tore a strip of fabric from the hem of his under tunic and began binding the wound. His touch was gentle, cautious. Once he'd finished, he didn't return to his side of the fire. Nor did he let go of her hand.

Nyssa was not a fool. She knew why he'd come with her. It wasn't to free two _wildlings_ or uphold his father's justice. She'd known he was running long before he'd come to the same conclusion about her. _We're not so different, _she thought, looking at the sad little lord pretending to be brave. "What will you do about the lions?" she asked.

Robb finally let go of her hand. She'd been honest with him, in her way. "I don't know," he admitted, surprised at how good it felt to say the words aloud. "What would you do?"

"I'd kill them all."

The Great Barrow stood silhouetted against the blood red sunrise. Nyssa had never thought to return here. _It's a holy place,_ she heard Cara as if the woman were with her now. _The Children used to worship here. _

"What is it?" the boy-lord asked, swinging his horse back around to face her. Now that Barrowtown was in their sight, her fortitude took wing and fled.

"I was in chains the last time I was here," Nyssa said, more to herself than him. She rubbed her wrists. Though the bruises from her shackles had long since faded, she felt the aching memory.

"You're free now," Robb reminded her.

Nyssa tore her eyes away from the Great Barrow. The boy-lord was wrong. Chains forged by men were easily broken. It was not so with the yoke of the gods. She felt the three-eyed crow heavy on her shoulder, heard it whispering in her ear, _you should not have come here, this is not your place. _She shut out the warning and urged her gray on.

* * *

The brothel was a ramshackle, wooden two-story. The red lantern hanging over the door was the only thing to set it apart from the other buildings lining the narrow, muddy street. Nyssa strode right through a stinking green puddle with the boy-lord close at her heels. He'd suggested she wait for him at the inn. A brothel was no place for a lady. The wildling had quickly reminded him that she was no lady. "They're my people," she'd said. "Not yours."

When she reached the door, painted red by the lamplight, she found it was locked and beat her fists against it until a bald, weasel-eyed man appeared. He gave her quick once over. "Ain't got no work for you here," he said. "Bugger off." He moved to close the door, but the wildling was faster. She stuck out her foot to catch it.

"I'm not looking for work," she said.

"Ain't got no food for you, either. Go beg elsewhere."

Nyssa reached for the dagger at her hip. Her fingers curled around the hilt, but the boy-lord placed his hand over her's before she could draw. It'd do no good to kill the man here in broad daylight. He wanted this done as quietly, and as quickly, as possible."It's not food we seek," he said. He took the leather purse out from of his cloak pocket and held it open just long enough for the man to catch a glimpse of the gold within. "We're here to buy."

The weasel-eyed man flashed them a toothless grin. "In that case, you'll be needing to speak to the master."

Robb plucked a single gold coin from the purse and tossed it to he man. He snatched the coin out of the air and held it up to the sunlight for a moment, before pocketing it.

"Follow me," he said, turning his back on them.

"After you," Robb said. There was no need. Nyssa was already stepping over the threshold, her hand still on her dagger. They entered a dim, low-ceilinged room. Shadowy figures lurked on the edges. Perfume hung heavy in the windowless den, yet it didn't quite mask the stench of sweat and semen. The whore's silks rustled. Men laughed, and moaned, and even sang. Their mirth did not touch the wildling.

She was glad when they left the den behind, until she followed the weasel-eyed man round a corner, and stopped short. Stretching before her, was the hall with many doors from her dreams. She heard Cara's lullaby, but it was not coming from the room at the end of the hall, as it had in the visions. _Don't listen, _the three-eyed crow cawed. _Don't follow._

"Oy, where you think you're going?" the weasel-eyed man said. Nyssa concentrated on the song and nothing else. She veered left, away from the dream hall, and stepped out into a little side yard. Though it had been high noon when she'd entered the brothel, just minutes ago, the sky was night black now. There was Cara, standing in the circle of light from the grim full moon above. She stopped singing.

"Don't worry about me," she said, smiling sadly. "I'm free now. My daughter..."

"I'll find her," Nyssa said. The moonlight was too bright. It burned, bringing tears to her eyes. She closed them and when she opened them it was day again.

"Nyssa?" The boy-lord stood in front of her, his hands on her shoulders. She knew what lay just behind him. She didn't want to know. She didn't want to see. But she stepped around the boy-lord, drawn to the truth like a ship to wreckage.

Nyssa saw the hole first- a gaping wound in the muddy ground. She approached it, stood at the edge, steeled herself, and looked down. Cara lay at the bottom in a pool of dirty, brown water. Her beautiful, soft hair had been shorn to the scalp. Naked as a newborn, every cut and every bruise on her body lay bare under the noon sun.

"Pity that," the weasel-eyed man said, joining her at the open grave. "Used to be pretty, that 'un."

"How did she die?" Nyssa asked. She didn't recognize her own voice or feel the words pass her lips.

"Starved herself. She had a little girl, so's I heard. Cried all the time. Sang too, like the brat could hear her."

"And the girl?"

"Don't know," the weasel-eyed man said. "Reckon she was sold off elsewhere. We don't buy 'em if they haven't bled yet, so if you're looking for-"

Nyssa drew her knife and slit the man's throat. She'd heard enough. Before his body even hit the ground, she began to lower herself into the grave, but the boy-lord caught her around the waist and dragged her back.

"Let me go," Nyssa cried."I've got to burn her. I've got to-"

Robb spun her around. He shook her until quieted. "We have to go." He glanced at the weasel-eyed man, blood bubbling from his throat.

"I won't leave her like that," Nyssa said, thrashing like a shadowcat and clawing at his arms. Someone would hear her, if they hadn't already. Not knowing what else to do, Robb slapped her hard across the face. She stilled, looking at him stunned.

"She's dead," he said. "We can't stay. Do you understand? We can't."

The wildling's eyes glazed over. She fled inside of herself. When they boy-lord pulled her across the yard, to an iron gate half-hidden by trailing weeds, she didn't resist. Nor did she look down into the hole as they hurried past it. She did not want to remember Cara that way. She wanted only to remember her as she'd been in the moonlight- free.

* * *

Once the Great Barrow was just speck in the distance behind them, the wildling brought her gray to a halt. She swung out of the saddle. Her feet struck the ground hard, her legs gave way, and she crumpled to her knees. _I have to go back, _she thought. _I have to burn her._ But she couldn't stand, couldn't move at all. The weasel-eyed man's words roared in her ears, louder than the wind. _Starved herself. Cried all the time. Sang, too, like the brat could hear her._

It was Nyssa who'd heard her song, though, but she'd come too late. She'd failed them- Illa and Alger, the old man Beak, and now Cara. _Don't die by their hands, sister, _the woman had told her months ago. That word, _sister, _tore through Nyssa's flesh and bones. It ate away at her from the inside, seeping into her blood, taunting her, damning her. She dug her fingers, slick with the weasel-eyed man's blood, into the earth. She saw Cara's naked body, rotting in a hole far from home. Nyssa gasped for air, feeling that it was _her_ lungs filling with dirt, that she was the one being buried.

A shadow fell over her. The shadow of the grave, she thought, but it was only the boy-lord. He knelt before her and, not knowing what else to do, wrapped his arms around her. She didn't fight him. She was cold, so cold, and so lost.

"You're alright now," Robb said."I've got you."He rocked her gently, like an infant, and she thought she was home, safe in her mother's arms. _Save your tears for the dead,_ she'd told the boy-lord not long ago, and she cried for them all now. For hours, she cried, long past the sunset. Robb held her, even after her eyes dried and she ceased trembling. He held her, afraid she'd be lost forever if he let go.


	23. Chapter 23

AN- CLTex, thanks for your reviews! Glad you like the story.

* * *

**"The man who fears losing has already lost."**

"I was sorry your lady friend didn't join us for supper," Lord Tallhart said. "I hope I caused her no offense."

Robb shook his head. He'd been lost in thought, thinking of the wildling. She hadn't spoken in days. Nor did she sleep. Often, he woke in the night to find her gone. She always returned, yet every morning, he dreaded, as well as half hoped, that she wouldn't.

"No, no. She's just feeling unwell," Robb said. After dinner, Lord Tallhart had invited him to a hot cup of mead in the lord's own chamber. He'd accepted eagerly, not quite ready to return to the wildling.

He was somewhat frightened of her now. It was not that she'd killed the brothel man that so troubled him. He'd seen his father behead countless wildlings, as well as deserters from the Nights Watch. No, what haunted him was how she hadn't so much as looked at the weasel-eyed man when she'd cut open his throat. Robb had forgotten how dangerous, how brutal, the wildlings were. He had forgotten that they were not from the same world.

"You haven't gone and got her pregnant, have you?" Tallhart asked.

"It's only a cold. We are...careful." He had not come to discuss the wildling. Robb set down his cup. The mead was hot and spiced, the best he'd had in a long time, yet he'd drunk little. "The last time I was here, you gave me some sage advice." He paused for a moment, knowing that what he said next would set his future in stone, for better or worse. _You're not a boy anymore, _he reminded himself. "When I return to Winterfell, I mean to summon the bannermen and march against the Lannisters. I ask you now, my lord, can I count on you to stand beside me?"

Lord Tallhart's reply came quicker than he'd expected. The gray-headed man left his chair by the fire and knelt at Robb's feet. "For your father," he said. "And for you, I would lay down my life a thousand times over. My sword is yours today, tomorrow, and all days after."

Robb grimaced. He did not want anyone to die for him, but they were right, all of them. He'd run from his responsibilities for far too long. His father needed him, as did the girls. His thoughts turned to the wildling yet again. She'd lost her family and he saw the toll it had taken on her. It was not a fate he thought he could bear. Having seen her cut down the weasel-eyed man without second thoughts or remorse, he understood what he must do. He swallowed his doubts and his guilt. For his family, he would ask men to die, he would ask the north to bleed, a thousand times over.

As the wildling had said, he would kill them all, every last Lannister that yet drew breath.

* * *

The three-eyed crow would not leave her be. Day and night, it cawed, as if to punish her. There was no need. She punished herself enough. For once, she should have listened to the bird and not have followed Cara's lullaby to the grave. Or maybe, if she'd disobeyed sooner, Cara would still be alive. What use was the Sight, if she could not save those she loved?

_ Protect the fallen child, _the crow said, again and again, never ceasing. She wanted to scream back at it, I can't protect anyone, the gods chose wrong, but she knew neither the three-eyed crow nor the gods gave a damn what she said. She wanted to pluck out the bird's feathers one by one and set them ablaze, but could not touch him. More than anything, she longed for silence, escape from the crow's harassment and from the fainter whisper of Cara's lullaby. She didn't know which sound was worse. They both drove her mad.

"You should get some sleep," the boy-lord said, sitting on the edge of the bed behind her. How could she sleep with such noise in her head, deafening memories and stubborn prophecies? The past and present threatened to tear her apart.

Robb twisted his hands in his lap. He wished she would speak, or make any noise at all. She could howl like a wolf for all he cared. Her silence was unnatural. After that first night, she had not cried or raged. She'd become like a corpse, a wight from Old Nan's story.

"Say something," he half-ordered, half-sighed. "You can't keep this up forever. Whatever you've locked up in there, it's killing you. I don't know, maybe you want to die. If that's it, then just...go on with it. Just give up."

Nyssa's spun around. She met his gaze for the first time in days.

"Forget about the girl," Robb pressed on. "What was her name? Briar." The wildling narrowed her eyes. There was the shadow of the woman he knew. "Maybe it's kinder just to let her die. Then she can be with her mother."He hated himself for saying such a thing, just as he'd hated himself for hitting her.

For a moment, the wildling continued to stare at him, something stirring in her cold, dead eyes. Then, still without making a sound, she flew across the room, a wave of pure fury. He threw up his arms just before she crashed into him. They fell backwards onto the bed. Straddling his waist, she struck every part of him she could reach, and he let her.

She wanted to hate him. Why didn't he fight back? Why did he just lay there, his teeth ground together, taking blow after blow? Her fists fell to her sides when the answer dawned on her. The boy-lord wasn't the coward. She was. _It takes more courage to take a punch than throw one, _her father used to say. Only now did she understand what he'd meant.

Nyssa wiped the blood from his nose with her sleeve. She bent over him, her dark hair curtaining them off from the rest of the world, from wars and the three-eyed crow, the dead and the living, past and future. "Thank you," she whispered, pressing her forehead to his.

* * *

They travelled on foot, Robb leading both of the horses. When they crested the last hill, they saw Winterfell. The seven stone towers stood tall, as they had for centuries. Looking at them, Nyssa felt more at peace than she had in a very long time. The three-eyed crow was gone, for now. _I'm back where you want me, _she thought. Summer and Shaggy Dog howled in the distance. Grey Wind answered them and raced ahead, eager to be with his brothers again. Robb was tempted to join him, but the horses were spent and he didn't trust the wildling to lead them back safely.

"Home," he said. Nyssa stole a glance at him. He smiled, ignoring the pain of his split bottom lip. His blue eyes, ringed with black bruises, shone bright. He hadn't once complained of the injuries she'd given him, though she caught him wincing from time to time.

"You should have your maester take a look at you," she said.

"I'm fine." Still smiling, he met her gaze and caught a shadow of guilt flit across her face. "Really, I am." He didn't care about the pain. He was only glad to have her back. They continued on in silence for a moment, and then he asked, "Do you remember the names of the slavers who took you?"

"Drust and Horse." Nyssa spat out the names. She kept Alroy's to herself, though. Slaver or not, he was just a boy. She swore no vengeance against him. "Why'd you want to know?"

"If we're going to find Briar, we'd best find them first." Robb had given the matter much thought over the past four days. As had Nyssa. She'd come to the same conclusion.

"We?" she asked. "Let me worry about them. You just worry about your war." He'd done too much as it was. She wouldn't ask him to do more.

Robb stopped. By the gods, for someone who knew so much, she could be such an idiot sometimes. "You don't have to do everything on your own, you know."

"I've done just fine on my own, boy," she snapped. Once, he might have believed her. Now he knew better. She didn't do well on her own at all. She needed someone to bring her back from wherever it was she went sometimes, back from her rage and sorrow. "I'll find the girl."

"I don't doubt it," Robb said. "But I gave my word that I'd help you free them. You can beat me again, if you like, but Starks keeps their oaths."

The wildling's cheeks flushed in shame. She looked away from him. "Come on," Robb said, nudging his shoulder against her's. "Lets go home."

_It's not my home,_ Nyssa thought, but she turned her eyes to Winterfell and couldn't help but return the boy-lord's smile. No, the stone castle wasn't home and the Starks were not her kin, but they were the closet things to it she had now.

* * *

Though Robb wanted nothing more than to go to his brothers, he'd gone straight to the maester's tower instead, where he found Luwin and Theon waiting for him. He'd sent word ahead that morning of his return and told them to meet him here.

"Where've you been?" Theon wasted no time on greetings. "And what in seven hells happened to your face?"

Maester Luwin said nothing, but he moved towards the young lord, concern in his eyes. Robb waved them both aside. "Maester Luwin, I need you to prepare the ravens. Send word to each and every northern lord. Tell them to raise their hosts and make haste to Winterfell."

Theon's scowl turned into a bloodthirsty grin. "Finally."

"My lord," Maester Luwin said, his expression grave. "I don't think it wise to-"

"I respect your council," Robb said. "But the time for caution for is past. Would you have me abandon my father, my sisters?"

The old maester sighed. He inspected the boy for a moment, yet found that the babe he pulled into the world was a boy no longer. Wherever Robb had gone with that wildling, whatever he'd done, it had changed him. He'd made his decision and there'd be no changing his mind. "No, I would not have you do that. The ravens will fly by nightfall." Then he hurried from the room, his long, gray robes trailing behind him.

Once he was gone, Robb fell into the maester's chair. So it was done.

"Should I begin preparing the men?" Theon asked.

"No, I've another job for you."

Theon stepped forward, his held high, still wearing that haughty grin. _This isn't a game,_ Robb wanted to tell him, but he held his tongue. He would need his friends now more than ever. It'd do him no good to anger Theon. Besides, he was certain that the words would fall on deaf ears.

"Ask me anything," Theon said.

"I need you to track down two slavers by the names of Durst and Horse."

In an instant, Theon's grin slipped away. "It's true then?" he said. "Bran said you'd gone off with that wildling bitch to-"

"Watch your tongue," Robb warned.

"It's what she is," Theon spat. "In case you've forgotten, she's not one of us. You've got better things to do than serve justice to a couple of slavers."

"There is always time for justice."

"What then? You're going to hunt down every slaver in the north and wage war against the Lannisters all at the same time?" Theon's eyes narrowed. "No, this isn't about justice, is it? You're doing this for _her_. Tell me, was she really that good of a fuck? Even if she was, no cunt is worth-"

Robb stood. His eyes were hard as stone. "Enough," he said. Though he didn't raise his voice, his tone was enough to silence Greyjoy. "I am the Lord of Winterfell and Warden in the North. You will do as I command, is that understood?"

Theon glowered at him a moment longer. Then, he lowered his eyes and muttered, "Of course, _my lord_. I live to serve." He marched from the room, slamming the door behind him. Robb sighed and fell back into the maester's chair. Theon would forgive him, eventually, and he had greater concerns. First and foremost, how was he going to tell his brothers that soon he'd have to leave them again and, this time, he might not return? None of them might ever return.

_Kill them all, _he thought, gathering his strength about him like armor. _Kill them all._


	24. Chapter 24

**"When the snow falls and the white winds blow, the lone wolf dies but the pack survives."**

"That's Wyman Manderly," Bran said, pointing to the fat man struggling to dismount his great, black war horse. Three of the stable boys flocked round him like a nervous flock of hens. Nyssa didn't blame them. She wouldn't want to be near either when the fat man fell. He'd crush the boys in a second.

Bran turned his finger to the two lord-boys. "And his sons, Wendel and Wylis. They're the richest house in the north, richer than us even."

"Explains why they're all so fat," Nyssa said.

Bran glanced around warily, making sure no one was listening. "You shouldn't say things like that," he whispered. "They already don't like you."

None of the northern lords had come near here, but their hostility was felt from afar. It was the Greyjoy's fault. All it had taken was one rumor and the great lords of the north had seen her for what she was. Robb was furious, Bran was concerned, and Nyssa was pleased. "I can't pretend to be your lady love forever," she'd told Robb.

Now, she reassured his brother. "I've seen giants, you know. Your fat man doesn't scare me."

"Giants, really?" Bran's eyes went wide. She nodded. It was part true. She and Alger had once found the bleached bones of a giant at the foot of the Fangs. She'd never seen a live one.

"I here Mance Rayder even got a few to join his army," she said.

Lord Manderly had finally managed to get down from his horse and was now waddling across the yard. His sons, trailing behind him, reminded Nyssa of a pair of ugly, bald ducklings. Bran watched them, frowning now. "I wish Robb had giants," the boy said. From over the castle's outer walls could be heard the roar of men. An army had taken up around them. Even though the wildling had warned him that war would come, and he'd sensed it himself, it'd become all too real.

To distract him, Nyssa asked, "What's that on their flags?" She squinted at the half-man, half-fish on the Manderly banners.

"A merman."

"Merman," she repeated."Forget about giants. I'd like to see me one of those."

"They're not real," Bran said.

Nyssa grinned at him. "You thought the same thing 'bout giants."

* * *

Bran didn't want there to be a war. He didn't want Robb to leave like all the rest of them. Jory Cassel had left and he'd died. His mother left and he didn't have the faintest idea where she was. His father left and the lions had him now. His brothers were all the family that remained to him.

Nyssa felt his pain and outrage, how he blamed his parents and missed them all the same. Even had they not shared a bond forged by the gods, she'd have understood. She'd felt it all before, many years ago after her own parents died.

Just as she had done then, the fallen child kept his thoughts hidden. Robb had enough to worry about and Rickon was wild with fear. _I'll have to be strong for him,_ Bran thought, _I'll be the Lord of the Winterfell._

"Can't someone else do it?" Nyssa had asked Robb the night before. "Bran's just a boy." But the Starks had ruled Winterfell for hundreds of years, and so on, and so forth. She didn't give a damn about bloodlines or tradition. She didn't know much about being a lord, either, but she'd seen how the title wore away at Robb. It pained her to think that burden should go to Bran.

Nyssa slid clumsily from her horse, while a stable boy fumbled with the leg straps of Bran's saddle. The yard was full of loud, bearded men, banging their swords together. It looked more like they were dancing than fighting.

"They'd be better suited in dresses than armor," she said to Bran, hoping to bring out a smile. It didn't work. He looked past her and his wind-chapped face went pale.

"What was that?" a man's voice boomed behind her. Nyssa turned and found herself staring at a wide, muscled chest. She tilted her head back to meet the man's fierce, steely eyes. He had to be at least seven feet tall. The Greatjon, Bran had called him. She'd noticed how the others treated him like he was a giant among men, but Nyssa had seen a giant's skeleton. This man was puny, he was a speck.

"Nyssa," Bran said, his voice pleading.

She ignored him."I said, you'd all be better suited in dresses than armor."

What little of the Greatjon's face that could be seen beneath his thick, dark beard, now turned red in fury. "You calling us women?"

"No," Nyssa said. "I've seen plenty of women who fight better than you lot."

"I'd watch that tongue, if I were you." The big man's fist clenched around the great, ugly sword at his belt. "Might be Lord Robb's too scared to teach you a lesson, but by the gods, I'll cut that sharp tongue right out of your head."

"My brother's not scared of anything," Bran said

But the Greatjon only heard the wildling's response. "I'd like to see you try."

The big man drew his sword and, with a mighty roar, brought it swinging down at her. Nyssa leapt aside and the blade struck the ground. He swung again. She dodged. She circled him, lithe as a cat and quiet as mouse.

"Stop!" Bran cried, still atop his horse. The stableboy had stopped what he was doing to watch the fight, as had everyone else in the yard. "I command you to stop!" No one heard him. The northern lords cheered on the Greatjon.

"Give her a taste o' the north!" one shouted.

Nyssa ducked under the Greatjon's sword. It whistled right over top of her head. Still, she wasn't concerned. He was one of the the biggest men she'd ever seen...but big men were slow, and big men could fall. She kept circling him. All the while, his swings became sloppier, his emotions getting the better of him. That was the problem with the southrons. All these _northern_ lords thought they knew about ice and the cold. _But they know nothing of the north. _They were all fire, hot-blooded and soft. At best, they were snow, but not ice.

The Greatjon swung, and swung. More than once, his blade grazed her skin, like a whisper drawing blood. His sword cut across her back as she darted behind him, but his turn was slow. The opportunity she'd been holding out for opened up before her. Nyssa dropped to the ground and, pressing her palms to the earth for support, kicked the backs of the big man's knees, putting all of her weight into the blow. He fell to his knees. Before he'd even realized what had happened, she had her dagger to his throat.

"Go on," he spat. "Kill me quick."

She pressed her blade against his windpipe. Just the slightest move of her hand and he'd be dead. A hush fell over the yard, and then Bran spoke. "Nyssa, don't."

She glanced up at the boy, pale and shaking in his saddle, and remembered how Robb had looked at her, with fear in his eyes, after she'd killed the weasel-eyed man. _I'm not frightened of you,_ was the first thing Bran had said to her. He was the only one who'd never saw her as a monster, as a _wildling. _

"Next time," she hissed into the Greatjon's ear, "I'll gut you like a fish, big man." Then, she sheathed her dagger and marched off across the yard, ignoring the hostile eyes of the so-called northerners at her back.

* * *

Nyssa didn't look up from her stitches when Robb entered her room. She concentrated on patching the hole in the knee of her trousers. Illa had done most of their sewing. It'd been a long time since she'd had to take up a needle for herself. She frowned at her messy stitches, wondering how her sister had always managed to keep them so straight.

"I summoned you," Robb said.

"Well, I'm busy." The thread snared for the dozenth time. She worked at the knot, growing more frustrated by the second.

After a minute of watching her struggle, Robb snatched the trousers out of her hands, untangled the thread with ease, and tossed them back to her. "You sew worse than my sister."

Nyssa ignored the slight and went about her task. She knew why he'd come. "Get on with it," she said.

"You can't go picking fights with my bannermen," Robb said. He'd just spent the better part of an hour listening to Greatjon Umber's complaints.

"It was him that started it," she muttered.

"Oh really? So you didn't insult his men?"

"I said what I thought."

"That's your problem," Robb said, fixing her with a stern gaze. "You shouldn't goad them. They hate you enough as it is."

"Told you already, I'm not scared of your little lords."

Robb nearly laughed. He'd heard the Greatjon called many things, but never _little_. Sometimes, he thought the wildling too bold for her own good. "You should be. I can't look after you all the time. I do have a war to fight and it doesn't help things when you go off and publicly shame my men. The Greatjon says either you go or he does."

"And what'd _you_ say?"

"I told him that if he tried to leave, I'd have his head for treason."

Nyssa gave him a small, approving smile. It vanished as soon as he spoke again.

"Still, you've got to apologize to him."

"I won't," she said. "I've got nothing to apologize for. You said it yourself, they hate me. They'll hate me no matter what I do."

"Maybe not," Robb said, though he knew she was probably right. "I learned to like you well enough."

"And that's your problem. All of them can see just how much you _like_ me." Nyssa finally set down her needle and turned her eyes to him. "They think I'm your whore, that I've bewitched you with my cunt."

After all this time, her brusqueness could still catch him off guard. Robb had heard the rumors, too. He brushed them off, but now, hearing it from the wildling, his cheeks went hot.

"What do you mean, they can see how much I like you?"

Nyssa snorted. "It's plain enough you want me."

"I don't...that's not..." Robb stammered like a fool and hated himself for it. _By the gods, get a hold of yourself_, he thought, _she's only a woman._ He remembered kissing her, though, that one time. Remembered the firelight dancing across her naked skin.

"See, you've got the look in your eye right now," Nyssa said.

"I don't want you," Robb snapped.

"There's no shame in it. You can't help what your-"

Robb didn't want to hear anymore. "You'll apologize to the Greatjon," he said. "And that's a command, not a request." Then, he fled the room, before he made an even greater fool of himself. In that moment, he'd rather fight a thousand wars than be alone with her a second longer.

* * *

Nyssa didn't seek out the Greatjon because the boy-lord had _commanded _her to. She hadn't intended to seek him out at all. It was the old maester who'd changed her mind. He'd found her in the servant's dining hall that morning. "I don't know who you are, or why you're still here, my lady, but I suspect you care something for Robb. You're not a fool. You know well enough he needs the loyalty of the lords, if he's to have any chance against the Lannisters."

She'd said nothing in return, but the old maester's words took root. So had Bran's. "You're too proud. It's going to get you killed." But it wasn't her own life she feared for. The Greatjon was no threat to her. It was the boy-lord she worried about. War was coming and she did not want to come between Robb and his men. The old maester was right. He needed the Greatjon. He could not fight the lions alone.

So, she swallowed her bitter pride and found the big man in the ruins of the library tower. The charred remains of the books had been thrown out, still the smell of burnt parchment and leather bindings remained. She wrinkled her nose when she entered the room. Standing by the broken window, the Greatjon glared down at her, with his thick, hairy arms folded across his broad chest.

"Your lord sent me to apologize," she said, wasting no time. She wanted to be done with this quickly.

"Don't need no sorrys from the likes of you," the big man said.

"Good, because I'm not going to give you any." The cuts he'd given her stung. She had not forgotten that he was her enemy. Nor could she deny that he was fearsome warrior.

"Then what'd you want, girl?"

Nyssa took a deep breath. "Where I'm from, you'd be respected for your skill with the sword," she admitted stiffly. "Most of those others couldn't cut down so much as a sapling."

The Greatjon's expression didn't change. "That boy ought to keep you on a leash, same goes for his damned wolf."

"I'll take that as a compliment, big man," Nyssa said. To her surprise, as well as his, the Greatjon let out a short, booming laugh. When it faded, his gaze was not quite as hostile, but he kept his arms crossed.

"Tell me, then," he said. "What are the Starks keeping you around for?"

"I could go any time I wanted."She sighed. It wasn't entirely true. Something held her here, in Winterfell, and it was no longer just the gods or even the promise she'd made to the red-headed woman. _I suspect you care something for Robb, _the old maester had said, putting words to the feeling that she couldn't. "The Starks have been good to me," she went on. "If it weren't for them...if it weren't for your lord, I'd be dead more like than not." _Or worse, _she thought, _I'd be a walking corpse, a hot-blooded wight._

"You in love with him?" the Greatjon asked.

"I owe him a debt. Nothing more. I'm not from here, but I know how some things work. I know you owe him your loyalty." She paused again. Then, "I don't 'spect you to like me. I sure as hell don't like you."

"Get to the point if there is one," the Greatjon said.

"Neither of us are going anywhere and that's that. For the sake of your lord, though, we've got to put our bad blood aside. Our people have been killing each other for hundreds of years, but there's another war on the horizon, and it ain't between you and me. Robb needs men like you to fight with him. He's just a-"

"Just a boy," the Greatjon finished for her. He inspected the wildling for a moment, his anger dampened by curiosity. She couldn't be any older than the young lord, but looking into her dark eyes, he suspected she'd seen things that would make even him tremble. After a moment, he let his arms fall to his sides and accepted that she'd bested him once again.

"Can't say I'll ever trust you," he said. "It's true enough, though. Half of these men here aren't worth a pile of horse shit. My damn pride aside, you're a born fighter if I ever saw one."

"Is it a truce, then?" she asked, holding out her hand as the southrons did when they came to an agreement. The Greatjon took her hand, crushing it in his meaty fist.

"For now," he said, before quickly letting go. "For the boy."

"For Robb," she corrected. No one was allowed to call him a boy save for herself.


	25. Chapter 25

AN- Just a short, Robb-centric chapter to pass the time. More plot next time.

* * *

**"Power resides where men believe it to reside. No more and no less."**

Bran sawed away at his meat. He hated boar. It was a boar that'd killed the king, or so the Lannisters claimed. "It wasn't a boar that brought down Robert Baratheon," Robb had told him though. "It was the queen's doing."

His brother now gave him a gentle kick under the table. He wouldn't reprimand the boy in front of the bannermen, but the look in his eyes was warning enough. _Behave yourself, _it said. Bran almost wished he was still too young to sup with the lords. He'd rather have baby Rickon for company than these grown men with their talk of war.

"My lord," Roose Bolton said, leaning forward to address Robb at the head of the long table. _In father's place, _Bran thought. "There have been rumors that the Kingslayer's taken your Uncle Edmure hostage."

The raven had come two days ago. Robb had decided to wait for all of the bannermen to arrive, so he'd only have to break the news once. Apparently, most of them were already aware. _First Uncle Benjen, _he thought wearily, _now Uncle Edmure. _"It is true, my lords. Riverrun has fallen."His words were met with buzzing, angry outbursts. The Greatjon slammed his fist against the table, knocking over his cup. Dark red wine spread over the the blue table cloth.

"The Kingslayer better not get too cozy," Umber said, his voice rising above all the rest. "We'll root him out soon enough."

"I thought we were to march on King's Landing," Roose Bolton said. He was the only man among them who'd not lost his cool. His clear blue eyes, steady as two glaciers, remained fixed on Robb.

"To King's Landing!" Robett Glover cried.

His older brother, Galbart Glover, silenced him with a glance and added, "The Tullys have always been true friends of the north. In my opinion, we should liberate the Riverlands first. We can't hope to lay siege to the capitol without your grandfather's bannermen."

"What of Lord Stark?" Halys Hornwood said. "Is it not our foremost duty to free him?"

Everyone had a different opinion. Robb's eyes darted from one lord to the next, listening to them in silence, committing their words to memory. In truth, he said nothing, because he had not decided for himself what their next move should be.

Bran drowned them all out, wishing he could ask to be excused. He knew what he would do, if the decision was his. The answer seemed simple. _I'd save father. I'd bring him home._

* * *

Robb sank into the copper tub. At last, he was alone. He couldn't recall the last time he'd had a moment to himself. He filled his palms with water and watched it run through his fingers. The steam of the hot bath washed over his face. He rested his head against the cushion tucked behind his neck, closed his eyes, and tried to forget about the choice he'd have to make, and soon.

But in his head, he still heard the lords calling out their advice. They bickered worse than Sansa and Arya. They were all stubborn and they all thought their plan better than everyone else's. Robb wished he had just half of their self-certainty.

He pulled in a deep breath and sunk further down into the tub. His head slipped under the water, enveloping him in warmth and silence. It was peaceful here. If he never surfaced again, he'd never have to make decision. Soon, though, his lungs burned with the need for air. He waited as long as he could, before coming up, gasping and sputtering.

"Trying to drown yourself?"

Robb's eyelids flew open. The wildling stood across the room, with the open window at her back.

"You can't be in here," he shouted. Water splashed over the lip of the tub when he hurriedly crossed his legs.

"The door wasn't locked," she said with a shrug.

"That doesn't mean you can barge in." Robb shifted, wishing she'd look somewhere else.

"Pardon, _my lord. _Not many doors where I come from. To get any privacy, you had to hike all the way to the Fangs."

"I don't care how you used to..." He paused, took another deep breath, and repositioned his hands. What use was it, explaining doors to a wildling? "What are the Fangs?" he asked instead.

"The Frostfangs."

Uncle Benjen had told him about the mountains over the Wall, a veil between the Lands of Always Winter and the Haunted Forest. Robb made a note to ask her about them again when he was clothed."Do you mind?"he said, after an agonizing minute of silence.

Nyssa leaned against the windowsill. Her eyes raked over his chest, down the dark line of hair starting below his belly button and leading... "No, I don't mind," she said, looking back up at his face.

"You know what I mean," he said.

"Aye, reckon I do." But she didn't turn around. There was a teasing quirk to her lips. She smiled more these days, though still not often, and usually at his expense. "You've seen every inch of me, _my lord. _It's only fair I get a look at you."

He glared at her. She smirked back at him. After another minute, he submerged himself once again. Nyssa wondered if he meant to drown himself, after all, but then his dark, curly head broke the surface. He rose, stepped out of the tub, and spun around, nearly slipping in a puddle of bathwater. The wildling laughed. So much for dignity.

When he turned back around, dressed now, she was frowning over the maps spread across the table. "Where do the lions live?" she asked.

Robb joined her. He tapped the miniature sketch of a many turreted castle at the mouth of Blackwater Bay. "King's Landing, the capitol." Then he dragged his index finger west, to the opposite shore of the map. "But their true home is here, at Casterly Rock."

"So that's where you'll go?"

"No. The bulk of the Lannister's forces are here..." he pointed to Riverrun, then Harrenhal"and here." Staring at the map, as he had often these past two days, he forgot about the wildling, but he spoke aloud, thinking. "My father's in King's Landing. If we march that way, Tywin's sure to move his armies east, putting them between us and the capitol. We could take to the sea, but we don't have the fleet for it, or the time to build one."

Nyssa circled behind him. "Riverrun," she said, tracing the letters she couldn't read. "That's where your mother's from, right?"

Robb nodded, hardly paying her any attention.

The little castle was nestled at the place where a thick, blue line forked into two smaller ones. "What're these?" she asked, charting out the blue lines with her hand.

"Are there no maps where you come from, either?" Robb asked.

"No, not like this."

"The blue lines are rivers. That there is the Red Fork."

"Why's it called red?"

"Well, because it is red, from all the mud and silt pouring in from the Westerlands."

Nyssa had never seen a red river before, except for the river of blood in her dreams. She stepped back from the map, intimidated by how much there was to see. The south was bigger than she'd thought it was. All of those strange marks, lines, and letters meant nothing to her. They were a secret language. She envied how easily the boy-lord seemed to understand it.

"Well, where will you go?" she asked.

"I don't know," Robb admitted. "If I march to King's Landing to save my father, then the Lannisters will burn my mother's homeland to the ground. If I march to the Riverlands and free my uncle, then..." He couldn't finish. He did not need to.

"Then the lions will kill your father," Nyssa said. It was no easy choice. "Save your father, or save your uncle, either way you've got to decide soon, before your men lose faith. Don't over think it. You already know which battle you can win."

She left him alone with his maps, but he no longer needed to look at them. She was right, of course. Robb tore his eyes from King's Landing and turned them back to Riverrun.

* * *

They would march to Moat Cailin at week's end. _And on to Riverrun from there,_ Robb thought, as he rode through the ranks. The camp sprawled out from Winterfell's walls, all the way across the moors, to the edge of the Wolfswood. All around, men were loading the wagons and making sure their swords were good and sharp, but as he passed, they all stopped what they were doing to look up at him. Some of them called out to him, cheers of encouragement, while others watched solemnly.

He could not blame them for their simmering resentment. Here he was, a _boy_, asking them to turn their backs on the man they were sworn to protect. They could not know how much Robb doubted his own decision. _If we could take King's Landing..._But there was little hope of that. He remembered Maester Luwin's council, "Be certain and they will follow you," and buried deep his doubts.

The Head Steward rode at his side. The sound of his quill scratching against parchment, as he counted off the men, drove Robb mad, as did the Head Steward's babbling on about how many sacks of potatoes and turnips, how many barrels of dried meat, they'd need. He looked at the army with beady, calculating eyes, seeing only numbers, not men going to their deaths.

"There's not much we can spare," the Head Steward said. "After all, winter is coming," He smiled to himself at what Robb could only assume had been a poor attempt at a joke.

"You'll spare what needs to be spared," he said.

"Of course, my lord." The Head Steward ducked his head under the young lord's stern gaze. Robb hated when they did that. He hated riding high atop his horse while his men trudged through the mud. "You'll ruin your cloak," the Head Steward cried out, when he swung out of his saddle. His boots sunk in the mud, where they belonged. _I don't give a damn about my cloak,_ he thought. If he wanted his men to follow him, he'd have to do more than act certain. He would have to be one of them.

Without looking back at the steward, he continued on foot, wading through the shallow brown rivers made by wagon ruts in the up-turned earth. He stopped every dozen feet or so, to lend a hand loading the wagons, or to exchange a few words with the men. On and on the army stretched. _His _army. _His_ men. The least he could do was learn their names and faces. Some of them were even younger than him. He spotted their bright and eager faces shining among the hard-browed veterans, who'd already seen their fair share of bloodshed during the Greyjoy Rebellion.

All day he walked through the camp, losing track of time. Night crept up on him. His stomach growling and his feet aching, he made his way back to the castle. Hungry and tired as he was, though. he couldn't resist climbing the battlements. The effort was well worth it. He looked out at the moors, ablaze with hundreds of bonfires, and felt hopeful for the first time in weeks.


End file.
